Chronicles of a Cairo bookseller / Nadia Wassef.
Publication details: London : Corsair, 2021.Description: 224 pages ; 24 cmISBN:- 9781472156839
- 9781472156822
- Wassef, Nadia
- Bookstores -- Egypt -- Cairo
- Bookstore owners -- Egypt -- Cairo -- Biography
- Booksellers and bookselling -- Egypt -- Cairo -- Biography
- Women -- Egypt -- Cairo -- Biography
- Egypt -- Politics and government -- 21st century
- Cairo (Egypt) -- Political aspects -- 21st century
- Cairo (Egypt) -- Social life and customs -- 21st century
- Cairo (Egypt) -- Social conditions -- 21st century
- 381.45002092 23/eng/20211014
- 962.16 23
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item reserves | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Melbourne Athenaeum Library | Biography | 381.45 WAS | Available | 072036 |
First published in the US in 2021 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The streets of Cairo make strange music. The echoing calls to prayer; the raging insults hurled between drivers; the steady crescendo of horns honking; the shouts of street vendors; the television sets and radios blaring from every sidewalk. Nadia Wassef knows this song by heart. In 2002, with her sister, Hind, and their friend, Nihal, she founded Diwan, a fiercely independent bookstore. They were three young women with no business degrees, no formal training, and nothing to lose. At the time, nothing like Diwan existed in Egypt. Culture was languishing under government mismanagement, and books were considered a luxury, not a necessity. Ten years later, Diwan had become a rousing success, with ten locations, 150 employees, and a fervent fan base. Frank, fresh, and very funny, Nadia Wassef's memoir tells the story of this journey.