The Committee, by Ṣunʿallāh Ibrāhīm

From the 1982 Maṭbūʿāt al-Qāhirah edition, published in the spring and illustrated by the Egyptian artist Ṣalāḥ ʿInānī, born in 1955. You can find many of his playful portraits of everyday Egyptians online; the images in this edition of Ibrāhīm's modern classic The Committee carry a distinct hint of Ralph Steadman's drawings, particularly those he made of Hunter S. Thompson. Consider, for instance, The Doctor, whom ʿInānī portrays with jackboots, spectacles, and a menacing smile complete with a companion bird. He makes the stuff of nightmares oddly playful, and therefore jarring, uncanny, but all too real.