{"id":906,"date":"2019-06-10T13:00:12","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?p=906"},"modified":"2019-06-10T13:00:12","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T12:00:12","slug":"the-book-of-cairo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/06\/10\/the-book-of-cairo\/","title":{"rendered":"“A city haunted by many ghosts”: The Book of Cairo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edited and with an introduction by Raph Cormack (Comma Press, 2019)<\/h2>\n

This is the first of Comma Press\u2019s \u201cReading the City\u201d books I\u2019ve read, and I was drawn to The Book of Cairo <\/em><\/a>for primarily personal reasons: Egypt is my dad\u2019s homeland, and its history the reason for my family\u2019s enforced dispersal across the globe. I wanted to learn more about a country that for me carries much displaced nostalgia, and Raph Cormack\u2019s thoughtful introduction gives a moving insight into the history and modernity of Cairo: \u201cThe city has entered into a state of enforced forgetfulness\u201d, he writes of the Arab Spring \u2013 a different historical conflict from the one that my family endured, but the same deliberate state-sponsored amnesia.\u00a0Cormack writes of a \u201cdesire to escape\u201d prevalent among young Egyptians, and describes Cairo as \u201ca city that has always felt on the verge of disintegration\u201d, \u201cbeset with difficulties and haunted by many ghosts\u201d. The Book of Cairo <\/em>presents ten short stories (four of which are by women writers), and\u00a0brings to life this troubled, complex city.\"\"Together these stories present a mosaic of a shifting city, fraught with problems ranging from poverty and inequality to drugs and military interventions. But they also have an individual and very human dimension, from the street-sweeper fearful of not being able to afford his daughter\u2019s wedding (\u2018Gridlock\u2019) and the alienation of experiencing everything outside of a collective narrative (\u2018Into the Emptiness\u2019) to the misery of unrequited love (\u2018The Other Balcony\u2019) and the single-minded quest for truth that blinds the seeker to all else (\u2018Hamada al-Ginn\u2019). Cairo\u2019s streets and buildings come to life, as does its fresco of diverse inhabitants and its westernisation (messages are sent via WhatsApp, Pampers and Persil are part of a family\u2019s regular shopping experience, and high-rise buildings spring up to \u201cbrush the sand away into the backdrop\u201d). The stories range in tone from comical to satirical, surreal to sinister: in \u2018Whine\u2019, an office manager becomes convinced that evil spirits are manipulating his fate, while \u2018Hamada al-Ginn\u2019 questions notions of \u201ctruth\u201d: \u201cThey both stuck to their stories, despite the continuous physical interrogation that they were subjected to for three days, ordered by Major Haitham Hamdy himself (some people give this \u2018physical interrogation\u2019 the name \u2018torture\u2019).\u201d In \u2018Siniora\u2019, a man is so obsessed with observing his girlfriend\u2019s genitals that he doesn\u2019t notice that while she is sitting naked before him she has been setting up an illegal home-grown drugs empire and has moved on from him entirely; in \u2018Two Sisters\u2019, a woman\u2019s attraction to a masked man in a video store has vampiric consequences, while the narrator of \u2018Into the Emptiness\u2019, \u201cdissolve[s] in this world and disappear[s].\u201d<\/p>\n

My two favourite stories in the collection were (perhaps coincidentally) both about storytellers: \u2018Talk\u2019 is about a professional rumour-monger, and \u2018The Soul at Rest\u2019 about an obituary writer. In \u2018Talk\u2019, a doctor is surprised to find his life close to ruins because of a rumour that he thinks has no basis in truth: his investigations lead him to the office of a man who gleefully admits that he started the rumour as part of his own ministry of vigilante justice. A failed writer himself, the rumour-monger explains that \u201cI used to write stories that no one ever read. But I was only successful at rumours. I\u2019ll remain an uncredited author, but at least I\u2019ll be a well-off one. And who knows, maybe one day I\u2019ll achieve some immortality\u201d, and this chilling attitude highlights the dangers of slanderous stories in a fame-seeking fake-news age in which \u201cinnocence and guilt are one and the same, since both the innocent and the guilty issue the same denials.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u2018The Soul at Rest\u2019, an obituary writer makes an ill-advised judgement about a woman whose lover wants her to have the most lavish obituary he can buy. The obituary writer then attempts to make amends for his thoughtlessness, acknowledging that he needs to feel better about his own mistake: \u201cWhat I want to say won\u2019t take more than a page, maybe two. But one thing is for sure, regardless of the number of pages, it won\u2019t make a difference to anyone but me. I just want to vent so I <\/em>can feel better about what I\u2019m going through\u201d. The obituary writer lavishes his time and money attempting to atone for the wounds caused by his thoughtless prejudice, because \u201cthe pain kept growing inside me until it had become a permanent resident\u201d, and tries all he can to escape from his own guilt:<\/p>\n

\u201cI cried a lot, I asked God for forgiveness; I even went as far as asking for a transfer to another department.
\nI just wished that I could meet the man again, to ask for his forgiveness.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This proves impossible for reasons I\u2019ll let you discover for yourself, but his ultimate admission that \u201cmy pain has still not subsided\u201d is a timely reminder about the importance of resisting judgement based on class and creed.<\/p>\n

The Book of Cairo\u00a0<\/em>is a superb collection of intimate modern stories that shatter the mysticism of the Orient and show us what Cairene life is and can be.\u00a0I love the work Comma Press seeks out, and shall be reading more from their Reading the City\u00a0<\/em>series. I\u00a0also highly recommend Banthology<\/a><\/em>, stories of protest commissioned from the seven \u201cunwanted nations\u201d on Trump\u2019s original \u201ctravel ban\u201d (five of which are by women writers) \u2013 literature can and should be political, should challenge and subvert, should resist complacency and the \u201cculture of sameness\u201d<\/a> \u2013 and Comma Press are leading the way.<\/p>\n

Review copy of The Book of Cairo <\/em>provided by Comma Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edited and with an introduction by Raph Cormack (Comma Press, 2019) This is the first of Comma Press\u2019s \u201cReading the City\u201d books I\u2019ve read, and I was drawn to The Book of Cairo for primarily personal reasons: Egypt is my dad\u2019s homeland, and its history the reason for my family\u2019s enforced dispersal across the globe. 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