#hot air balloon
“Rumors flew thick and fast among the Egyptians that the French were going to raise a giant, airborne ship that could travel from one place to another,” writes novelist Rasha Adly in The Girl with Braided Hair (2020). It is a vibrant vision of one transitional moment in Egyptian culture: the introduction of the hot air balloon. It was during the Napoleonic era that hot air balloons were first lifted to Egyptian skies—a moment often romanticized and glorified in literature…
