''Beer In The Snooker Club'' is a semi-autobiographical novel by the Egyptian writer

Waguih Ghali Waguih Ghali (25 February 1927/1928/1929 – 5 January 1969) was an Egyptian writer, best known for his novel '' Beer in the Snooker Club'' (André Deutsch, 1964). Fearing political persecution, Ghali spent his adult years impoverished, living in ...

written in English and first published in 1964.

Structure

On the surface, the novel reads as a typical post-colonial novel; the Francophone,

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

educated Egyptian Coptic protagonists struggle with their conflicting allegiances to the English culture that produced and imposed colonialism, and to the Egyptian revolution that opposed colonialism but also implemented repressive domestic policies. The novel ultimately rejects the mediated binaries of post-coloniality, searching instead for a notion of cosmopolitan identity, defined both as a historically and locally situated urban subject and as a politically engaged 'citizen of the world'.

Plot

Behind the bar at Jameel's in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the Capital city, capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, List of ...

hang two mugs engraved with the names of Ram and Font. During their years together in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, they drank many a pint of Bass from these mugs. But there is no Bass in Nasser's

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

– so Ram and Font have to make do with a heady mixture of beer, vodka and whisky. Yearning for Bass, they long to be far from a revolution that neither serves the people nor allows their rich aunts to live the life of leisure they are accustomed to. Stranded between two cultures, Ram and Font must choose between dangerous political opposition and reluctant acquiescence.

Reception

According to author

Diana Athill Diana Athill (21 December 1917 – 23 January 2019) was a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the greatest writers of the 20th century at the London-based publishing company Andre Deutsch Ltd. Early life ...

, ''Beer in the Snooker Club'' is "a classic of the literature of emigration." Ahdaf Soueif wrote that "Beer in the Snooker Club is one of the best novels about

ever written. In the protagonist, Ram, a passionate nationalist who is nonetheless an anglophile,

creates a hero who is tragic, funny and sympathetic. Through him we are presented with an authentic and acutely observed account of Egyptian society at a time of great upheaval. It is marvellously cheering that this novel is available again after twenty years."

Gabriel Josipovici Gabriel David Josipovici ( ; born 8 October 1940) is a British novelist, short story writer, critic, literary theorist, and playwright. He is an Emeritus professor, after having been Professor at the University of Sussex. Biography He was born ...

wrote "This is a wonderful book. Quiet, understated, seemingly without any artistic or formal pretensions. Yet quite devastating in its human and political insights... if you want to convey to someone what Egypt was like in the forties and fifties, and why it is impossible for Europeans or Americans to understand, give them this book. It makes

The Alexandria Quartet ''The Alexandria Quartet'' is a tetralogy of novels by British writer Lawrence Durrell, published between 1957 and 1960. A critical and commercial success, the first three books present three perspectives on a single set of events and characters ...

look like the travel brochure it is." Writing in ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'', Rachel Aspden feels that the book "may be angry, but it is also extremely funny. Ghali neatly skewers the pretensions of the Cairene elite along with the hypocrisies of empire... In Ghali's Cairo, almost everything is phoney."

Related Books

* Diana Athill. ''After a Funeral''. London: Cape, 1986. - winner of the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography

References

External links

Waguih Ghali's Page on the Literary Encyclopedia

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20101205141605/http://www.serpentstail.com/book?id=11001 Book's page on Serpent's Tail, the Publisher
Book Review by Ahdaf Soueif on the London Review of Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beer In The Snooker Club Egyptian novels Autobiographical novels Egyptian English-language novels 1964 novels Novels set in Egypt André Deutsch books