It is appropriate I am writing this review on International Women's Day. Here is a woman - Nadia Wassef, who with her older sister and a woman friend did indeed do the extraordinary - in the early 2000s open and successfully operate for a number of years, a book chain in Cairo. What a relentless and thankless struggle for recognition as successful business people, and to rise above the endemic fundamentalism of a woman's expected place in Egyptian society. Nadia ended up getting out of the bookshop game; I am surprised how long she did stay - so determined, a fighter, not afraid to curse, pull people - men and women - into line, refuse ridiculous offers from business men who thought she would be a push over. It has cost her two marriages, and she endured two unpleasant pregnancies during her time as a book seller. What a woman. Tough as.
And underlying it all a deep love of books and literature, the fundamental importance of reading and learning not just for the growth of the soul, but for the education of everyone, women and girls in particular. One of the many wonderful things about the chain of shops was how they became a safe haven for women and girls to enter and be themselves in. The challenges are enormous, not just from the patriarchy, but also from the government of the day in actually getting books in. Jamie Oliver's The Naked Chef banned because it contravened censorship laws? It is almost comical if it wasn't true. And people believing that a bookshop is more like a library - why should I pay for a book, why can't I just borrow it? And bringing in non-Egyption books, classic books we consider common place in any Western bookshop.
Well worth a read.
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