Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller

Nadia Wassef

'A unique memoir about career life love friendship motherhood and the impossibility of succeeding at all of them at the same time . . . fascinating. Blunt honest funny' Jenny Lawson author of Broken (in the best possible way)

'A moving portrait of Diwan and the Cairo that embraced it an ode to all the people who have kept it going' Harvard Review

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. Its eclectic cast of characters features Diwan's impassioned regulars like the demanding Dr. Medhat; Samir the driver with CEO aspirations; meditative and mythical Nihal; silent but deadly Hind; dictatorial and exacting Nadia a self-proclaimed bitch to work with-and the many people mostly men who said Diwan would never work.

Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller is a portrait of a country hurtling toward revolution a feminist rallying cry and an unapologetic crash course in running a business under the law of entropy. Above all it is a celebration of the power of words to bring us home.

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