Review of “The Magnificent Conman of Cairo” by Adel Kamel

Monitoring Desk

CHICAGO: First published in Arabic in 1942, “The Magnificent Conman of Cairo,” by Adel Kamel, is an extraordinary tale that transcends time and boundaries. Translated into English by Waleed Al-Musharaf, Kamel writes of Cairo in the 1930s, where Khaled and Malim lead two very different lives with two very different families, one of influence and one of none.

Each man has carved a specific path for himself amid the chaos of the world. But in Kamel’s Egypt, destiny is not followed, it is made, and because of chance encounters and accidents of birth, the course of Khaled’s and Malim’s lives are altered in inexplicable ways.

Kamel’s Cairo is a city of imposing figures, prejudicial circumstances, powerful influences and powerless impacts. The son of the cruel Ahmed Pasha Khorshed, Khaled has returned from university abroad but is not the man his father thought he would become. Kamel writes: “Khaled returned to Egypt in a frenzy of revolt against society as a whole.”

Khaled’s perspective on life changes after his years spent in Europe, to the extent that he no longer believes that society is an accident of fate. He believes that “wealth and poverty were now the necessary results of the precise interactions between political and economic systems.”

On the other hand, there is Malim, who is the son of a man of no influence, and whose life in the neighborhood of Housh Eisa has revolved around avoiding hard work. But he has since turned a new leaf, and wants to earn an honorable living by working as a carpenter’s apprentice.

Then Khaled and Malim meet. The former is motivated by his philosophy, whereas the latter is driven by his commitment to honor. While it seems as their paths should merge, they clash, and the cruelty of reality takes over their futures.

Kamel’s wit is dry as he mocks his characters’ choices to expose humanity’s worst, and his humor is almost depressing if not so revealing of society. His work raises questions of status, education, and the ethics of power and desperation. He mocks the confusion of young men and the implications that society has enforced upon them.

Kamel’s story and characters are layered with cynicism of societal standards. And it may be this book that speaks volumes as to why he abruptly left writing for law, when he writes: “The status of an artist or a writer in a country like Egypt, which had only a modest claim to civilization at best, was somewhere between a truck driver and a court clerk.”

Courtesy: (Arabnews)