"Albert Cossery, who died in 2008 at age 94, ought to be a household name. He's that good: an elegant stylist, an unrelenting ironist, his great subject the futility of ambition 'in a world where everything is false.'"
David Ulin "The Colors of Infamy is more compact and assured than Proud Beggars. It doesn't indulge in as much lyricism ... Read moreas the earlier book, but wrenches even more startling delirium from Egypt's long years of abjection." " Beyond Cossery's stylish ironies, we glimpse a country seething in poverty and malfeasance and, like the concrete buildings his narratives are usually set in, perpetually on the verge of collapse. In fact, it is seems as if only the totality of this corruption is keeping the country together, an adhesive of turpitude permeating every social fabric. " Show Less