Citizen of Nowhere: Waguih Ghali's Life in Literature and Exile

A spirited, clear-eyed account of the life and work of the author of the cult novel, Beer in the Snooker Club

Waguih Ghali’s Beer in the Snooker Club is hailed as one of the “best novels ever written about Egypt” (Ahdaf Soueif) and a “classic” of postcolonial literature (Pankaj Mishra). It skewers both the treachery of the British in Suez and Nasser’s police state with unprecedented comic brio.

Ghali’s family were Coptic Orthodox Christians who belonged to Egypt’s cosmopolitan elite. After hi...