Tea in Zamalek

Author's name: Boris Milikovich

Life in Egypt is divided into two versions: one from the perspective of Egyptians, and the other from that of foreigners. Since they are often concentrated in Zamalek, downtown Cairo, and the surrounding neighborhoods, their judgment of Egypt as a whole depends on what they experience during their stay in those neighborhoods. Our hero, whom we will call "B," lives in Zamalek and is a manager at an advertising company. He spends his days alone, accompanied only by his memories of this country, intertwined with his memories of Yugoslavia before its partition. "B" named his diaries in Egypt "Tea in Zamalek," perhaps because they resemble those short, quick stories Egyptians exchange while sitting in cafes drinking tea. This is what we will notice here: stories that begin suddenly and end just as suddenly, only to be resumed by him when something reminds him of them. Amidst all these fragments, we learn about his personality (which he despises, by the way): that of a white man, arrogant, contemptuous of everyone, who suffers from a superiority complex... only to admit that he is "racist and despicable." It may be the diary of an Orientalist in Egypt, characterized by self-criticism and criticism directed at Egypt and the Egyptians, but at the same time it is another version of Egypt that we would like to know; the life of a lonely foreigner living in the Zamalek neighborhood, where he sleeps under his slow ceiling fan, drenched in his sweat, afraid to open his room window.