This is an absolutely riveting and inspiring book about an incredibly intelligent, gutsy woman whose great passion for literature and culture saw her and two other women establish and create a unique business, Diwan, a bookshop in Cairo.
Diwan was launched in Egypt in 2002 during an extremely difficult period when there was no culture of reading; when the country’s education system discouraged freedom of thought; and significantly, when there was little to no disposable income to spend on books. Yet Nadia Wassef, her sister Hind and friend Nihall were united in a shared vision and nothing daunted their determination to succeed. From their total inexperience, they battled the difficulties of doing business as women and overcame the huge challenges of importing foreign books and the government’s censorship policies and regulations. Their ambition and hard work saw Diwan expand in a relatively short time to 10 bookshops.
Interwoven throughout is a fascinating insight into Egypt’s history, politics and the endemic corruption. The impact of thousands of years of colonisation, the loss of culture and language is discussed against the rise of Islam.
Nadia Wassef was nominated three times by Forbes Middle East list as one of 200 of the most powerful Arab women in the Middle East. Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller is a candid and inspiring memoir clearly shows what drove her and why she achieved so much.
Reviewed by Karen Williams
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nadia Wassef is an owner of Diwan, Egypt’s first modern bookstore, which she co-founded in 2002 with her sister, Hind. She received an MFA from Birkbeck College at the University of London; a Master in Social Anthropology from the University of London; and a Master in English from American University in Cairo.
Before Diwan, she worked in research and advocacy for the Female Genital Mutilation Taskforce and in the Women and Memory Forum. Featured on the Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the Middle East in 2014, 2015, and 2016, Wassef’s work has been covered in Time, Monocle, Business Monthly, and elsewhere. She lives in London with her two daughters.
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