Cairo International Book Fair
Thursday, February 1st, 2007The world’s second largest book fair is held in Cairo each year (Frankfurt’s book fair is the largest). Of course, we had to go. And even though we knew it would be big, we didn’t plan that, after four hours of walking around the fairgrounds, we would still have more than half the fair to see.
Just one hall at the fairgrounds.
While walking through a hall I happened to see a man who vaguely resembled Albert Einstein, with slightly wild grey hair and dark glasses. He looked exactly like the guy on the back of jacket of the book which I had finished just the day before. And lo and behold, he was sitting in front of the Arabic language copy of the book I had read. So, I introduced myself to Sonallah Ibrahim and told him, in very poor Arabic, mixing up colloquial Egyptian Arabic with standard Arabic, how much I enjoyed his book, “The Committee”.
He asked me if I spoke English and indicated I could sit down next to him. I was flattered, so I sat down, but then quickly realized that I didn’t have anything else to say to him (in Arabic or English). So, I gave him a few more compliments and then excused myself, completely embarrassed that I couldn’t say anything more intelligent to one of Egypt’s leading modern writers.
While trying to find a bathroom we happened upon the lively used book section of the book fair.
Surprisingly, the riot police were at the book fair. I had a hard time imagining literature-loving rioters, but a friend of ours told us later that two years ago an opposition group staged a demonstration at the book fair because they knew the riot police wouldn’t suspect it. Aruba awi (“pretty clever”).
After four hours of wandering through books written in a language you don’t understand, you’ve got to stop for food.