Goodbye to Albert Cossery

The French-Egyptian author Albert Cossery passed away on June 22. We are great fans of the Cossery oeuvre here at Arabist, and if you haven't read any of his darkly funny books I highly recommend that you do so (I'm a big fan of "Mendiants et Orgueilleux," or "Proud Beggars" (1955) an of "La violence et la dérision"). He left Egypt in 1945 but continued to write about it for the rest of his life. He had a wonderful grasp of the graciousness and cynicism of Egyptian street life, and of the hashish-smoker's lifestyle; and he was a great political satirist whose plots are still perfectly relevant.