by Diana Athill
First published 2016
Waguih Ghali records his final years as an Egyptian political exile navigating London during the swinging sixties. The novelist behind Beer in the Snooker Club fills six notebooks with raw accounts of his daily existence between 1965 and 1969. He chronicles his endless drinking sessions, multiple love affairs, and encounters with London's intellectual elite while wrestling with the isolation of exile. Ghali moves between West Germany, London, and Israel, carrying memories of Egypt and Paris. He becomes the first Egyptian permitted to enter Israel following the 1967 War, documenting his anxiety about this unprecedented journey. The diaries reveal his struggles with depression, his dependence on others for financial support, and his battles with the writing process. He observes the political machinations in Jerusalem and Cairo with sharp insight while confessing the deep pain of separation from his homeland. The entries capture both the excitement of London's cultural scene and the inner torment of a displaced writer seeking meaning far from home.
Genres: 20th-century, african-literature, autobiography, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: displacement, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Egypt, Israel, London, West Germany
Period: 1965-1969, 1967 War
248 pages · Hardcover · The American University in Cairo Press
Content warnings: depression