Paying Cards in Cairo: Mint Tea, Tarneeb and Tales of the City by Hugh Miles

Trade Paperback: £10.99

Published 03/04/2008

Genre: Memoir, travel

An Abacus title


There's an old saying that goes like this: "Lucky in cards, unlucky in love", but Hugh Miles (freelance journalist and son of a British diplomat) manages to come up trumps in both, and in this part memoir, part travelogue he tells us of his love for Cairo, but specifically for a Cairene woman whom he later marries.

In "Playing Cards in Cairo: Mint Tea, Tarneeb and Tales of the City" , Miles recounts how he returned to Cairo after a short stint there as a freelance journalist because he wanted to get to know, Roda, an Egyptian woman. He started off as her card partner and end up as her partner for life.

Initially it was very difficult for Hugh and Roda to be alone (Egyptian society does not allow a man and a woman to socialize without a chaperon), so Roda organized card games at her home thus providing an Hugh and herself an opportunity to be hang out together, albeit with a group of other card players. As they played tarneeb (a form of bridge) about 3-4 nights a week at Roda's apartment, Miles became privy to the inside workings of Egyptian society, especially the lives of young women and the problems they face living in such a tightly-controlled society.

He regales us with the stories of the other tarneeb players: Nadia, whose husband beats her just because he can; Reem, who is suffering from the effects of a botched plastic surgery operation; and, most memorably, Yosra, whose life is so intolerable with a sick father and dominating policeman brother and a non-existent love life that she anesthetizes herself all day with prescription drugs. It is through the lives of these women that Hugh Miles makes us aware of the huge problems that the fairer sex must face in Egypt.

While I liked the novel's intense local focus, conveying the daily rhythms of life in Cairo's various neighborhoods, I think one of the book's main attractions is Miles' acute observations of Egyptian life,stresses and codes of conduct.... toxic stress arising from overpopulation and unemployment; severe religious control; repressive regime; torture prisons; rising prices; the refugee situation etc. ( desperate refugees and economic migrants continue to arrive from across Africa and Iraq. In January hundreds of thousands of Palestinians burst through the Gaza blockade, an event that could repeat itself at any time.)

Miles' book also functions as a window into the political, religious and cultural tensions under which women in Egypt live. Egyptian woman are burdened with preserving the honor of the family and as a result they have to keep their private lives hidden which results in an inordinate amount of stress, lies and deceit. To add to that, they face constant discrimination and sexual harassment both, in the work place and in their day-to-day lives.

Whether you're interested in Egypt from the point of view of traveling there or just as an observer of world cultures, this book is for you...do pick up a copy when you can.

The Yacoubian Building عمارة يعقوبيان by Alaa Al Aswany and a book giveaway(CS Richardson's "The End of The Alphabet"!!!

# Paperback: 272 pages

# Publisher: Harper Collins (Jul 20 2006)

# Language: Elegantly translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies

#Genre: Fiction, Middle-Eastern, Cairo



First of, all thanks to Radha for recommending this book. I picked up my copy at London airport and read it in the 6 1/2 hours it took me to fly from London to Montreal. I should have been trying to catch up on my sleep really, but the book was hard to put down.

In "The Yacoubian Building" Egyptian writer Alaa Al Aswany turns a single Cairo apartment block into a vibrant portrait of Egypt. While it essentially tells the story of contemporary Egypt, it also touches upon its history and other forces that gave the country its present form. All this is told through a wonderful and diverse cast of characters spanning Egypt's social divides- from a French-speaking homosexual newspaper editor to a one-legged Coptic manservant; from a sensual geriatric to a young man who finds solace and self-respect in Islamic fanaticism and atleast ten other delightful characters.

When the novel's namesake was first built it attracted people from the upper echelons of Egyptian society like, the pashas, cotton millionaires and rich foreigners. Anyone who was someone had to have an apartment there because it was a status symbol , however, when Abd el Nasser came to power in a coup in 1956, he threw the westerners out of the country and the rich and well-to-do Egyptians followed them leaving apartments in the Yacoubian Building vacant.

These vacant apartments were grabbed by Nasser's military officers and their families who were often of a more rural background and lower social caste than the previous residents. Many of them arrived at the apartment with servants in tow and the storage rooms on the terrace were converted into lodgings for these servants, thus you now have a building which houses a slum community on its terraces and influential nouveau riche families in the apartments, thus embodying Egyptian society in microcosm. The change in the building demographics could also serve as a metaphor for the Egypt of old, the Egypt with its French cafes, distinguished and western- educated men and women no longer existed giving way to a new society where the desperate poor rub shoulders with the rich, the powerful and the corrupt.

(Talaat Harb Street, Cairo as it is today)

What makes the novel "The Yacoubian Building" special (apart from its wonderful characters and great writing) is that the building really did exist at the address given in the novel (Talaat Harb Street) even if it does not match its literary namesake in every detail. Infact, the author's father maintained an office there for a while and the author himself (a practicing dentist) once had a dental clinic there.

The novel was a bestseller in its native Egypt and in 2003, it was voted "Best Novel" by listeners to Egypt's Middle east Broadcasting service. I am not surprised because it is filled with delightful vignettes that are guaranteed to entertain, move, educate and appeal to the reader while opening a window to Middle Eastern culture and society. I should mention, however, that it's publication surprised a lot of people because it is very unusual for a book containing homosexual references to be cleared for publishing by the government of Egypt.

Be prepared to be annoyed at the way women are treated in this society and also be prepared to feel disturbed at how young men are recruited into the fundamentalist way of life. But despite some of the gloom, this wonderfully-written book will have you looking up more works from this author.

Read Moroccan writer Laila Lalami's take on the novel.

This must have been my lucky weekend because I was nominated for not one, but two blogger awards. Nymeth gave me the "Thoughtful Blogger Award" and Anali gave me the "Nice Matters Award". Thank you ladies, you really made my day! I know I am supposed to nominate 5 others, but it would be a really tough job to pick only five, so if you don't mind, may I pass on nominating someone else?
And last, but certainly not least, for anyone interested in Thai literature, look no further than Marcel Barang’s workshop which features a wonderful selection of Thai literature(short stories and novels) translated into English!!! I have been enjoying the stories so much, I hope you do too!

******WIN a copy of CS Richardson's 'The End of the Alphabet" . All you have to do is leave a comment letting me know you're interested in the book. I will conduct the draw in a week from now. Anyone, anywhere in the world is eligible to enter, good luck!*********