City of the Sun

Author, Juliana Maio has written an historical novel that showcases the events that were happening during World War II in the Middle East.  Don’t dismiss the book, City of the Sun too quickly, there is a love story and intrigue mixed in with the historically accurate details of this book that makes this a story that grabs the reader’s attention and keeps you engaged until the end.

Mickey Connolly, is an American who has come to Egypt to make a name for himself as a newspaper reporter.  He is rather naive, idealistic and seems rather uninformed about the area he is in and the events happening around him, as he tries to report on civilian life in Egypt.  He is caught up in the exotic “Paris on the Nile” until he gets recruited to work for the American Embassy on a covert mission.  

As the novel unfolds we see that America was not the only country interested in the Jewish scientists that were escaping from Germany.  As Rommel is trying to expand the Nazi influence further in Northern Africa, Maio creates a story of intrigue and espionage pitting Connolly against a Nazi spy as they both try to recruit the same scientist who has information about creating a bomb that could end the war.  

This story of a developing romance between the fictional Mickey and his love interest Maya is interwoven with real historical characters like, Anwar Sadat, the young King Farouk, Sir Miles Lampson and American Ambassador Alexander Kirk and the situations that were happening during the 1940s in Egypt.  Maio has rewritten the real life German spy Johannes Eppler, as the character, Heinrich Kesner, the obsessive Nazi spy working to get recognized by the SS.  Like Eppler, he has mixed Arab and German background and lives on a houseboat while infiltrating into Egyptian society to spy on the British and American presence there.

The story is centered in Cairo, which was a very sophisticated city where French was the main language spoken and Europeans, Jews and Arabs coexisted in peace.  The Suez Canal is built and the country becomes more modernized.  Then the English take control and the book explains the history of turmoil as dissonance is heard from the Islamic fundamentalists, the nationalists and the Egyptian monarchy.  Even as war is waging in Europe and coming closer to North Africa, life in Cairo is still glamorous.  “Ataba Square, the wide open plaza at the west end of the city, was easily Cairo’s foremost commercial center, buzzing all day with soldiers and merchants.  But this evening when Mickey descended from the arabya hantour, the horse-drawn buggy he had taken to the Continental Hotel. he encountered a very different crowd.  Men in linen suits  and women in pearls emerged from Rolls Royces and Bentleys arriving at the hotel in battalions.  Valets, dressed all in white, scurried frantically to assist this influx of Cairo’s high society.”

The author, Juliana Maio was drawn to this topic because of her personal background of Jewish- Egyptian heritage.  Her family was expelled from Egypt during the Suez Crisis and she grew up in France.  She knew she wanted to write and learn about the Jews of Egypt.  She began studying Egypt’s history, and after ten years of research and writing she has completed City of the Sun.

Maio received her B.A. at the University of California, Berkeley, and her Juris Doctor degree from UC Hastings.

Juliana practices entertainment law in Los Angeles and has represented internationally renowned filmmakers as well as a host of independent production companies. Prior to that she served as vice president of worldwide corporate and business affairs for Triumph Films, a joint venture between Columbia Pictures and Gaumont Films.

Juliana co-founded Lighthouse Productions, an independent film and television company. She has spoken both domestically and abroad about the Arab Spring. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, film producer Michael Phillips. They have a daughter.