The history of the Arab Spring, told from the eyes of Peter Hessler, who lived in Egypt during the years following the initial uprising. In the midst of the revolution, Hessler often traveled to digs at Amarna and Abydos, where locals live beside the tombs of kings and courtiers, a landscape that they call simply al-Madfuna: "the Buried. Hessler recountsh is efforts to learn the Arabic language, relating it back to his work in learning Chinese. They also befriended Peter's translator, a gay man struggling to find happiness in Egypt's homophobic culture.
Matthew Bell is a reporter for PRI’s The World. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Peter Hessler is an American writer and journalist. He is well known for his two books, *China, River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze *(2001) and *Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present* (2006). Hessler graduated Princeton University in 1992 and won a Rhodes Scholarship to study English language and literature at the University of Oxford. In 1996, he joined the Peace Corps and spent the next two years teaching English at a local college in Fuling, China. Since 1999, he has lived in Beijing as a freelance writer. He is currently married to journalist and writer Leslie T. Chang. In 1999, Peter Hessler started a Yahoo Scholarship Fund which supports students in Sichuan, Chongqing and Tibet.