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Laziness in the Fertile Valley (Paperback): Albert Cossery Laziness in the Fertile Valley (Paperback)
Albert Cossery; Translated by William Goyen; Foreword by Henry Miller; Afterword by Anna Della Subin
R343 Discovery Miles 3 430 Ships in 9 - 15 working days

Laziness in the Fertile Valley is Albert Cossery's biting social satire about a father, his three sons, and their uncle - slackers one and all. One brother has been sleeping for almost seven years, waking only to use the bathroom and eat a meal. Another savagely defends the household from women. Serag, the youngest, is the only member of the family interested in getting a job. But even he - try as he might - has a hard time resisting the call of laziness.

A Splendid Conspiracy (Paperback): Albert Cossery A Splendid Conspiracy (Paperback)
Albert Cossery; Edited by Alyson Waters
R372 R313 Discovery Miles 3 130 Save R59 (16%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Summoned home to Egypt after a long European debauch (disguised as "study"), our hero Teymour--in the opening line of A Splendid Conspiracy--is feeling "as unlucky as a flea on a bald man's head." Poor Teymour sits forlorn in a provincial cafe, a far cry from his beloved Paris. Two old friends, however, rescue him. They applaud his phony diploma as perfect in "a world where everything is false" and they draw him into their hedonistic rounds as gentlemen of leisure. Life, they explain, "while essentially pointless is extremely interesting." The small city may seem tedious, but there are women to seduce, powerful men to tease, and also strange events: rich notables are disappearing. Eyeing the machinations of our three pleasure seekers and nervous about the missing rich men, the authorities soon see--in complex schemes to bed young girls--signs of political conspiracies. The three young men, although mistaken for terrorists, enjoy freedom, wit, and romance. After all, though "not every man is capable of appreciating what is around him," the conspirators in pleasure certainly do.

The Colors of Infamy (Paperback): Albert Cossery The Colors of Infamy (Paperback)
Albert Cossery; Translated by Alyson Waters 1
R305 R252 Discovery Miles 2 520 Save R53 (17%) Ships in 10 - 15 working days

His eyes "shine with a glimmer of perpetual amusement"; his sartorial taste is impeccable; Ossama is "a thief, not a legitimated thief, such as a minister, banker, or real-estate developer; he is a modest thief." He knows "that by dressing with the same elegance as the licensed robbers of the people, he could elude the mistrustful gaze of the police," and so he glides lazily around the cafes of Cairo, seeking his prey. His country may be a disaster, but he's a hedonist convinced that "nothing on this earth is tragic for an intelligent man." One fat victim ("everything about him oozed opulence and theft on a grand scale") is relieved of his crocodile wallet. In it Ossama finds not just a gratifying amount of cash, but also a letter - a letter from the Ministry of Public Works, cutting off its ties to the fat man. A source of rich bribes heretofore, the fat man is now too hot to handle; he's a fabulously wealthy real-estate developer, lately much in the news because one of his cheap buildings has just collapsed, killing 50 tenants. Ossama "by some divine decree has become the repository of a scandal" of epic proportions. And so he decides he must act. . . . Among the books to be treasured by the utterly singular Albert Cossery, his last, hilarious novel, The Colors of Infamy, is a particular jewel.

Proud Beggars (Paperback): Albert Cossery Proud Beggars (Paperback)
Albert Cossery; Translated by Thomas W. Cushing; Introduction by Alyson Waters
R451 R397 Discovery Miles 3 970 Save R54 (12%) Ships in 12 - 17 working days

Early in "Proud Beggars," a brutal and motiveless murder is committed in a Cairo brothel. But the real mystery at the heart of Albert Cossery's wry black comedy is not the cause of this death but the paradoxical richness to be found in even the most materially impoverished life.
Chief among Cossery's proud beggars is Gohar, a former professor turned whorehouse accountant, hashish aficionado, and street philosopher. Such is his native charm that he has accumulated a small coterie that includes Yeghen, a rhapsodic poet and drug dealer, and El Kordi, an ineffectual clerk and would-be revolutionary who dreams of rescuing a consumptive prostitute. The police investigator Nour El Dine, harboring a dark secret of his own, suspects all three of the murder but finds himself captivated by their warm good humor. How is it that they live amid degrading poverty, yet possess a joie de vivre that even the most assiduous forces of state cannot suppress? Do they, despite their rejection of social norms and all ambition, hold the secret of contentment? And so this short novel, considered one of Cossery's masterpieces, is at once biting social commentary, police procedural, and a mischievous delight in its own right.

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