Taxi (Egypt)

ISBN: 9781906300029 Price: £7.99 Click image to BUY

By Khaled Al Khamissi
Translated by Jonathan Wright

IT IS THE most diverse species on the planet and it inhabits the polluted, unforgiving streets of Cairo, a city that simply refuses to stand still.

The taxi driver is an urban omnivore whose high-speed colours, habits and moods reflect all surrounding life, and yet pass it by, in the bustling flora and fauna of the Egyptian capital.

Khaled Al Khamissi’s Taxi is a remarkable journey into the lives and labyrinths of this beast of burden that has become a best-selling modern masterpiece in the author’s home country.

Taxi brings together 58 fictional monologues with Cairo cabbies recreated from the author’s own experience of traversing the city. The experience takes the reader on a roller-coaster of emotions as bumpy and noisy as the city’s potholed and chaotic streets.

Described as an urban sociology, an ethnography, a classic of oral history - and a work of poetry in motion - Taxi tells Herculean tales of the struggle for survival and dignity among Greater Cairo’s 80,000 cab drivers. A wing-mirror that reflects both on modern Egypt and on the human condition, it plucks from the rush-hour sandstorm a feast of drivers’ recollections, memories, personal stories, lies, loves, hates, dreams and philosophical adventures.

Translated by Jonathan Wright, Taxi is a unique work combining the authentic insights of the man on the street with the poignant self-reflections of members of a caste who have little or nothing in common. Written in a rich colloquial that departs with a slam of a dented door from the literary language Egyptian writers commonly employ, it has been credited with reviving an interest in reading as it has become an instant best-seller, topping the sales charts in Arabic-speaking markets.

Taxi was released to the English market to co-incide with Arab countries being the market focus of the 2008 London Book Fair.

Read an extract (Download PDF)

‘“[Taxi is] like a refreshing breeze on a hot day.” Yes, the book is about the resilience of the human spirit, it is a powerful chronicle of the Herculean struggle for survival and dignity, it does document increasing social inequalities, and it does faithfully record the pungency and power of everyday speech. It’s an urban sociology, an empathetic ethnography, a collection of valuable oral histories, and a morphology of ordinary people’s language all rolled into one.’
- Baheyya.blogspot.com

‘Hemmed in by other cars, stifled by fumes and the summer heat, abused by corrupt policemen, overworked and underpaid, they talk about just about everything — politics, women, films, travel abroad and most often their contempt for authority.’
- Daily Star, Egypt

‘…interest in the book shouldn’t be surprising. Although there has been an abundance of scholarly work attempting to determine “what happened to the Egyptians,” Khamissi’s novel stands out. His unlikely approach, lucid prose and rare insight into popular perceptions make Taxi perhaps the most interesting of the works that chronicle the social and political transformations Egypt has undergone during the past five decades.’
- Foreign Policy

REVIEWS
Marketplace public radio (video interview)
baheyya.blogspot.com
Bloomberg (review and slide show)
Complete Review
New Internationalist
Sydney Morning Herald
Ralph Magazine
Saudi Gazette
The Independent, London