In the similar vein is Albert Cossery’s “The Colors of Infamy.” An excessively instant learn, the guide follows a well-mannered pickpocket and serves as a information of types to the dynamics of the town’s historical markets — the swindling, the bargaining, the haggling for a deal. Once you put foot within the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, and even onto the pyramids plateau in Giza, the place you’ll be swarmed with gives for camel rides, horse rides and guides, it’s possible you’ll recognize having learn this guide.
What books or authors must I convey at the side of me?
Cairo is characterised largely via its layers of structure — Fatimid, Mamluk, Khedival. But it additionally has a wealthy historical past of contemporary structure, from turn-of-the-century revivalism to concrete expressionism and modernist design. This comprises the homes of iconic cultural figures. The area of the singer Oum Kulthoum has been demolished, however identical houses via the similar architect, Ali Labib Gabr, nonetheless stand within the neighborhood, together with what was once as soon as my grandmother’s area, only a few blocks away. This isn’t a singular, however Mohamed Elshahed’s “Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide” gives a super information to this contemporary age and makes for an ideal walking-tour better half, talking now not simplest of the constructions and their ancient importance but additionally of that generation.
In fiction, Waguih Ghali’s “Beer in the Snooker Club” is a cult vintage firstly written in English that depicts post-colonial Cairo throughout the eyes of a nationalist, Anglophone aristocrat grappling with a regime exchange and new socialist insurance policies underneath President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Although it was once written in 1964, it additionally tells the tale of Egypt now.
At the opposite finish of the category and experiential spectrum all the way through that very same political regime is Sonallah Ibrahim’s experimental novel “That Smell.” Published in 1968, it tells the tale of a not too long ago launched prisoner and his malaise as he struggles, and fails, to readjust to on a regular basis existence at the outdoor. There are many days on this fast-changing town that really feel like this novel to me.
If I don’t have any time for day journeys, what books may take me farther afield as a substitute?
André Aciman’s essay assortment “False Papers,” for a adventure to Alexandria. Born and raised there, Aciman returns a long time after his circle of relatives left for exile and tries to retrace the town because it existed in his reminiscence. He unearths little of it left, however his seek captures in bright element the town as it’s best remembered. His pensive guide strikes throughout time and geography, from Egypt to Europe, however, even there, it’s nonetheless about Aciman’s Alexandria. To cling directly to that sentiment — the having a look and the loss — you must then learn Constantine P. Cavafy’s “Collected Poems.” The two writers, each born within the historical port town, shape an unofficial Alexandrian compendium.
Yasmine El Rashidi’s Cairo Reading List
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Novels via Naguib Mahfouz
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“In the Eye of the Sun” and “The Map of Love,” Ahdaf Soueif
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“Slipping,” Mohamed Kheir
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“Cairo: City of Sand,” Maria Golia
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“The Colors of Infamy,” Albert Cossery
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“Cairo Since 1900: An Architectural Guide,” Mohamed Elshahed
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“Beer in the Snooker Club,” Waguih Ghali
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“That Smell,” Sonallah Ibrahim
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“False Papers,” André Aciman
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“Collected Poems,” Constantine P. Cavafy
