Beer in the Snooker Club

by Waguih Ghali

we just like to gamble. We’re lazy and we like to laugh. It’s only when gambling that we are wide awake and working hard.

To be loved by, and to possess the person we love is why we were born.

Cairo and Alexandria were cosmopolitan not so much because they contained foreigners, but because the Egyptian born in them is himself a stranger to his land.

‘the Egyptian soldier hasn’t got a nice house with a fireplace and books around it, and a girl friend with high heels, and money to buy beer with, and “civilization” to sacrifice for an army life.’

Egyptians are not found in Cairo or in Alexandria,’ she said. ‘You’ve never really known Egyptians.

‘Before the revolution you could only pick up a fare in the posh districts, now the army people also ride in taxis; that means we have the posh people and the army,’