Taxi
Khaled Al Khamissi
Translated by Jonathan Wright
Aflame Books
Dh58
It is easy to forget that Cairo used to pride itself on being "Mother of the World." Many years have passed since Egypt was a world leader in any field, and it has even lost its paramount status in the political and economic hierarchy of the Arabs. But one part of the economy seems to be flourishing: book sales. Following the success of The Yacoubian Building - Alaa al Aswany's melodramatic portrait of Egyptian society, which became a worldwide best-seller - Cairo has now become hot with western publishers.
The latest Egyptian book to hit the western market is Taxi. Its author, Khaled al Khamissi, has taken the most tired and hackneyed of journalistic clichés - the snatched interview with the taxi driver - and turned it into a best-seller. While any foreign correspondent who admits to getting all his information from a taxi driver would be fired on the spot, Khamissi has sold 60,000 copies in Arabic, and within a year of its original publication, his book has been translated into English.
The book consists of 58 conversations with taxi drivers - short and punchy, with the careless intimacy that comes from talking to a stranger you know you will never meet again. It all happens between April 2005 and March 2006, but it really could be happening now: the main theme - that many in Egypt can barely afford bread - has been played out in riots in the Delta earlier this month over the rising price of food.
Khamissi - a political scientist by training who makes his living from film and television production - has taken a snapshot of Egypt with pinpoint sharpness. The portrait is so real that you understand the inchoate rage of the poor mass of Egyptians, struggling to survive in a world where the dice are loaded in favour of the rich, the corrupt and the criminal. But Khamissi maintains his conversations are not actually real. "I didn't record anything or write it down. This book is fiction," he insists. Interviewed at the London Book Fair, he was adamant that the book was not a work of social science or - for all its immediacy - of journalism. The conversations are composites focused on the character of the Cairo taxi driver - "a dramatic personality, who spends all his time on the street, who is always on the move and meeting all kinds of people from all social levels.
"I wanted to tell the stories of ordinary people. Certainly these stories express the nature of Egyptian society, and you can take what you want from them. But this is not a work of political science." But for all his insistence that the stories are fictionalised, the fact is the Egyptians see them as real - and so will the western reader. Khamissi clearly revels in this ambiguity. He told a BBC radio reporter last year that while the stories were fictional, they were also "100 per cent real" - and invited her to meet one of the taxi drivers who then proceeded to tell his story, exactly as related in the book.
The author is having his cake and eating it. But it is no sin to pass fact off as fiction. Indeed, in a tightly policed state such as Egypt, writers need a little space of ambiguity to manoeuvre in. One of the joys of the book is how the author teases the reader about self-censorship in the Arab world, revealing that he had to leave out the best jokes in order to stay out of prison. When one taxi driver says of the Cairo police: "There's not one of those ******** who doesn't take bribes or steal," Khamissi adds a footnote: "Some people advised me to write that some of them take bribes rather than all of them, but I didn't take their advice."
Khamissi said he had cast around for a long time to find a way to portray the Cairo poor. After more than a quarter of a century of Mubarak's stagnation, Egypt had become a squeezed-out lemon, and many writers felt empty inside as well. They were unsure how to reach their readers or do anything to help their country out of its despair. Eventually he hit on the winning formula: a sort of fiction with a documentary edge, written in the idiom of the street - "a blunt, vital and honest language quite different from the language of salons and seminars that we are used to."
The Egyptian taxi driver is a world away from the middle class London cabbie jealously protecting his monopoly, or the thrusting new immigrant behind the wheel of a yellow cab in New York. He is a "tortured wretch", racked by corrupt policemen, milked by a bribe-seeking bureaucracy and in thrall to the banks. Things went wrong in the late 1990s when the government, in an attempt to soak up unemployment, allowed any type of car to become a taxi and just about any driver to be a cabbie. There are now 80,000 taxis in Cairo, so Khamissi was never likely to see the came cabbie twice.
The conversations build up a portrait of the lower depths of Egyptian society, from whose viewpoint the modern world is just a racket. The saga of the great seat belt scam is a telling example. One cabbie explains that seat belts used to be a highly-taxed luxury, so people would rip them out when importing a car. Then suddenly they became compulsory. The only seat belts to be found cost 200 Egyptian pounds (140 dirhams) - almost a month's salary for some people. And the police started fining the drivers 50 pounds (35 dirhams) a time for not having them fitted, and demanding a bribe from drivers not wearing them. Everyone made money - the police, the government and the seat belt importers - on the back of the cabbie.
All human life is glimpsed through the driver's windscreen and his rear-view mirror. There are some tantalising glimpses of women behind their hijab: the woman who tells her family she is working in a hospital, but changes in the back of the cab into a short skirt to work as a waitress. One driver is smitten with a prostitute - no heart of gold in her case - who teases him because he cannot afford her.
The book is touching, illuminating, and also frustrating: the taxi driver is in the modern world - with its seat belts, mobile phones and bank loans - yet nothing works in the way it is supposed to. Existence is reduced to bread - which significantly in Egyptian Arabic is called aish, or life. What has gone wrong with Egypt is not hard to understand, Khamissi says. "Ultimately what people want is very simple: they want to live in clean housing, they want to eat, and they want to get their children into good schools. Housing, food and education - that is Egyptian politics. Now the cost of food is extravagant and education has declined to an appalling state. It's as simple as that."
Surely, I counter, not everything is bad. If 60,000 people can afford his books, doesn't that mean there is a growing middle class? Khamissi admits that the private sector is making progress and this can be seen in a newly dynamic publishing industry. So there is hope that Egypt will regain its old glory? He pauses and returns to the dispossessed. "Don't forget: the professional class is not more than one per cent of the population."
Alan Philps is associate editor of The National
The%20specs
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The biog
Age: 19
Profession: medical student at UAE university
Favourite book: The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman
Role model: Parents, followed by Fazza (Shiekh Hamdan bin Mohammed)
Favourite poet: Edger Allen Poe
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Bundesliga fixtures
Saturday, May 16 (kick-offs UAE time)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke (4.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Freiburg (4.30pm)
Hoffenheim v Hertha Berlin (4.30pm)
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Paderborn (4.30pm)
Augsburg v Wolfsburg (4.30pm)
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Monchengladbach (7.30pm)
Sunday, May 17
Cologne v Mainz (4.30pm),
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich (7pm)
Monday, May 18
Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen (9.30pm)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Recent winners
2002 Giselle Khoury (Colombia)
2004 Nathalie Nasralla (France)
2005 Catherine Abboud (Oceania)
2007 Grace Bijjani (Mexico)
2008 Carina El-Keddissi (Brazil)
2009 Sara Mansour (Brazil)
2010 Daniella Rahme (Australia)
2011 Maria Farah (Canada)
2012 Cynthia Moukarzel (Kuwait)
2013 Layla Yarak (Australia)
2014 Lia Saad (UAE)
2015 Cynthia Farah (Australia)
2016 Yosmely Massaad (Venezuela)
2017 Dima Safi (Ivory Coast)
2018 Rachel Younan (Australia)
Match info
Uefa Champions League Group B
Barcelona v Tottenham Hotspur, midnight
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Squad for first two ODIs
Kohli (c), Rohit, Dhawan, Rayudu, Pandey, Dhoni (wk), Pant, Jadeja, Chahal, Kuldeep, Khaleel, Shami, Thakur, Rahul.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last-16 second leg
Paris Saint-Germain (1) v Borussia Dortmund (2)
Kick-off: Midnight, Thursday, March 12
Stadium: Parc des Princes
Live: On beIN Sports HD
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
North Pole stats
Distance covered: 160km
Temperature: -40°C
Weight of equipment: 45kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 0
Terrain: Ice rock
South Pole stats
Distance covered: 130km
Temperature: -50°C
Weight of equipment: 50kg
Altitude (metres above sea level): 3,300
Terrain: Flat ice
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Bareilly Ki Barfi
Directed by: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring: Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao
Three and a half stars
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
How to vote in the UAE
1) Download your ballot https://www.fvap.gov/
2) Take it to the US Embassy
3) Deadline is October 15
4) The embassy will ensure all ballots reach the US in time for the November 3 poll
BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
European arms
Known EU weapons transfers to Ukraine since the war began: Germany 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger surface-to-air missiles. Luxembourg 100 NLAW anti-tank weapons, jeeps and 15 military tents as well as air transport capacity. Belgium 2,000 machine guns, 3,800 tons of fuel. Netherlands 200 Stinger missiles. Poland 100 mortars, 8 drones, Javelin anti-tank weapons, Grot assault rifles, munitions. Slovakia 12,000 pieces of artillery ammunition, 10 million litres of fuel, 2.4 million litres of aviation fuel and 2 Bozena de-mining systems. Estonia Javelin anti-tank weapons. Latvia Stinger surface to air missiles. Czech Republic machine guns, assault rifles, other light weapons and ammunition worth $8.57 million.
Fire and Fury
By Michael Wolff,
Henry Holt
SPEC%20SHEET%3A%20APPLE%20M3%20MACBOOK%20AIR%20(13%22)
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UAE SQUAD
Goalkeepers: Ali Khaseif, Fahad Al Dhanhani, Mohammed Al Shamsi, Adel Al Hosani
Defenders: Bandar Al Ahbabi, Shaheen Abdulrahman, Walid Abbas, Mahmoud Khamis, Mohammed Barghash, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Hassan Al Mahrami, Yousef Jaber, Mohammed Al Attas
Midfielders: Ali Salmeen, Abdullah Ramadan, Abdullah Al Naqbi, Majed Hassan, Abdullah Hamad, Khalfan Mubarak, Khalil Al Hammadi, Tahnoun Al Zaabi, Harib Abdallah, Mohammed Jumah
Forwards: Fabio De Lima, Caio Canedo, Ali Saleh, Ali Mabkhout, Sebastian Tagliabue
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
HAJJAN
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Xpanceo
Started: 2018
Founders: Roman Axelrod, Valentyn Volkov
Based: Dubai, UAE
Industry: Smart contact lenses, augmented/virtual reality
Funding: $40 million
Investor: Opportunity Venture (Asia)
