Fathy's New Gourna project was applauded in a popular British weekly in 1947 and soon after in a British professional journal; further articles were published in Spanish, French and in Dutch. Later, Fathy would author a book on the New Gourna project, initially published by Cairo's Ministry of Culture in a limited edition in 1969, entitled "Gourna: A Tale of Two Villages". In 1973 it was republished by the University of Chicago as "Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt".