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Wajih Ghali
Wajih Ghali (1930 - 1969) is an Egyptian writer. His only novel is Beer in the Billiard Club, which he wrote during his stay in the early sixties between Berlin and London.Ghali left his country Egypt in the early sixties and traveled to Europe to work in precarious jobs, including a worker in factories in Berlin. And a number of other jobs, during which time he began writing his first and only novel, and also worked as a newspaper reporter and wrote investigations for the Sunday Times magazine. Based on his visit to Israel in the 1960s, Wajih Ghali committed suicide in the apartment of the English writer Diana Athill in 1969.

His biography
Wagih Ghali was born in Alexandria, to a Coptic family. According to his friend and editor-in-chief Diana Athill, Ghali carefully concealed details about his past and rarely spoke about them. Ghali's diary mentions his birthday (February 25), but does not mention his year of birth. He was most likely born between 1927 and 1929. When he was young, his father passed away and his mother remarried. Ghali writes in his memoirs about his family's financial struggles. Displaced, he moved between the homes of friends and relatives in both Alexandria and Cairo. However, members of his extended family were wealthy and influential.

Ghali attended Victoria College, on its campuses in Alexandria and Cairo, from 1944 to 1947. Iman Mersal, an Egyptian poet residing in Canada, wrote about his childhood, saying that "he was a childhood friend and student of the Egyptian actor Ahmed Ramzy."

He studied at the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University, and was present when the students organized a demonstration on December 4, 1948, in which policeman Salim Zaki was killed. Ghali began his medical studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, but did not complete them. He left Paris in 1953. He also lived in London in the mid-1950s.

One report indicates that he left Egypt permanently in 1958. However, the personal narrative articles he published in The Guardian (Manchester) between 1957 and 1959 about life in exile indicate that Ghali was already living in Europe by that time. After living in Stockholm for some time, Galli moved to West Germany in 1960. According to Athill, he agreed to any work he could find, including working at the docks in Hamburg, as a factory worker and as an agent. From 1964 until 1966 he served in the Royal Wage Corps of the British Army in Riedt, West Germany. In May 1966, Ghaly returned to London, where he continued to seek whatever job he could afford to earn a living.

On December 26, 1968, Ghali swallowed an entire packet of sleeping pills in Diana Athill's apartment. He died on January 5, 1969. Athill published a fictional novel based on her relationship with Ghali titled After the Funeral (1986)

His writings:
His articles in The Guardian

Between 1957 and 1959, Ghali published six short narrative essays in The Manchester Guardian (renamed The Guardian in 1959). These articles are Ghali's first published work. The first article, "My Friend Kamal", recounts Ghali's political activity in Cairo in the late 1940s. This article appears fictionally in "Beer in the Pool Club." Other articles, along with another article published in the Guardian in 1965, recount his experiences in exile in Europe: “My friend Kemal,” 5 June 1957; "Lessons for Mr. Luigi" Apr 21, 1958; "Daimler Culture" November 24, 1958; "The Authors", January 29, 1959; "Indian Courier", March 16, 1959; "My Ship's Captains", November 12, 1959; "The roses are real", February 20, 1965.

A beer in the pool club

Ghali began writing a beer novel at a billiard club while living in Stockholm and completed it in West Germany. The novel was first published by Andre Deutsch in London in 1964. Reprinted by Penguin in 1968 and "Serpent's Tail" in 1987 and 2010. The novel has been translated into French, Hebrew, Dutch, Arabic, Italian, and Spanish.

The novel revolves around a young Coptic named Ram, who, like the author, has little money, but lives a good life. It is a politically savvy novel set in the 1950s, and its narrative is critical of both the British colonial project and Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime. Ram and his friend Font (also poor) meet and befriend a Jewish communist from a wealthy family named Edna. At the time, the boys were university students and participated in demonstrations against the continued British presence in the Suez Canal area. A love story develops between Ram, a Coptic Christian, and Edna, an Egyptian Jew. Edna encourages Ram and Font to complete their education, and helps send them to London. Ram and Font's visit to London is disrupted by the 1956 Suez Crisis. On his return to Cairo, Ram suffers from the violence of Nasser's regime.

The novel depicts two communities in transition. After the tripartite Aggression in 1956, foreign minorities in Egypt began to leave, and the cosmopolitan character of Egyptian cities began to fade. The Suez Crisis also marked the end of Great Britain's reign as a colonial power. Beer in the Billiards Club depicts both transformations.

Wajih Ghali's Diary: An Egyptian in the Swinging Sixties Edited by Mai Hawass

Ghali's handwritten diary was copied, edited, and published in 2016 and 2017 in two volumes. The diaries cover the last years of his life, with the first volume covering the period between 1964 and 1966 and the second covering the period between 1966 and 1968. These diaries were originally in the possession of Diana Athel, who committed suicide in her apartment and left her a will to edit and publish these diaries, but she contented herself with writing memoirs about her relationship with him entitled “After the Funeral” in 1986. It turned out that the copy that Athel had of those diaries was lost but at the beginning of 2014, a replica of it was found, preserved by Deborah Starr of Cornell University, after she photographed it during a visit to London about ten years before that date. The manuscript was copied and edited "very meticulously".

Ghali spent most of 1964-1968 serving in the British Army Corps in the small town of Reddt (Mönchengladbach), in what was then West Germany. He often felt suffocated in the city, but wrote that Germany was one of the few places that granted him asylum. He often dreamed of moving to London, as he felt that there were plenty of intellectual and economic opportunities ahead of him there. He finally moved there in 1966, to live in the home of his girlfriend Diana Athill and relied on her financial assistance. From there, Ghali describes his tumultuous life with Atihel and his tireless struggles with alcoholism and depression, and writes of his criticisms of intellectual life in London in the 1960s. The diary also included an account of his visit to Israel a few days after the 1967 war, the reasons why he left, and the people he met. Shortly before his agonizing suicide note, he describes the moment when he discovers he has been stripped of his Egyptian passport. The published diary includes an introduction and interviews with Atihel and one of Ghali's relatives, Samir Basta, his cousin, in which he sheds light on his family life and childhood in Egypt. Khan's books was to present the diary in its full version without deleting or distorting, “belief in the value and importance of the work for the Arab reader, and what constitutes it as an important document for one of the victims and witnesses of his turbulent era.”

Unpublished writings
Ghali was working on a second novel when he died on January 5, 1969. Upon his death, he left parts of this unfinished novel as well as six notebooks. The Cornell University Library has digitized the archive of this unpublished work.

Critics' opinions about a beer at the pool club
Ahdaf Soueif writes that Wajih Ghali's excellent novel, "Beer in the Snooker Club", published by Andre Deutsch in 1964, attracted attention and positive critical reactions. The same happened when it was reissued in the Penguin New Writers series in 1968. The novel has been positively reviewed by both The Times and The New York Times, as well as in The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Yorker and other outlets. In his contemporary review of the novel, Martin Levine describes the book as "a little masterpiece in the form of a novel, doing many things with astonishing ingenuity. It gives an Egyptian view of Nasser's Egypt, and that gaze masterfully conveys the texture of this experience. It depicts the political struggles before and after the Suez Crisis in images that transcend journalistic vulgarity." .and creates an authentic and complex hero.”

Two years before the third edition of the novel was published, in a letter to the editors of the London Review of Books, the novelist Gabriel Yosipovici wrote: “Beer in the Pool Club is the best book ever written on Egypt (better even than my grandfather's Goha le Simple) It is unfortunate that copies are out of stock.

Each subsequent edition of the book generated additional positive reviews, attesting to the novel's continuing relevance decades after it was written.

The novel was featured in some cultural analyzes after the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Helen Stoer-Romerim wrote that "the themes of the novel reflect a discourse similar to that which fills Cairo today." Najjar Azimi also writes that a beer at the pool club "offers fascinating parallels to today's Egypt, where artists, thinkers, and youth in general are beginning to forge a new cultural republic even as they also struggle to explore their tendencies."

His trip to Israel
After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Ghali visited Israel as a freelance journalist. During his six-week stay from July to September 1967, he wrote two articles for The Times. In December 1967, he recorded a reflection on his visit to the BBC, the text of which was published in January 1968.

Ghali had already been denied the renewal of his Egyptian passport, so he had little to lose politically by visiting Israel, which was at war with Egypt at the time. However, he personally suffered from the criticism he received from his fellow Egyptians. Helmy Al-Namnam, the historian and Egyptian Minister of Culture, said: "In Egypt, his travel to Israel was a horrific event among intellectuals and writers, and he was condemned and viewed as a traitor, but his suicide came to bring the curtain down on him completely." Wajih Ghali was known in Egypt again at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when an Arabic translation of his novel was issued, after which several studies spoke about him, describing him as the "first printing one" with Israel.

Footnote

 * 1) Athill, Diana (1986), After a Funeral, New York: Ticknor & Fields, p. 43.
 * 2) Shaer, Muhammad (August 19, 2021), “Wajih Ghali.. the novelist whose career was cut short by visiting Israel in 1967”, Asharq, archived from the original on September 21, 2021, accessed on September 20, 2021.
 * 3) Clement (2002), Clement and Hamouda (Editor), Victoria College: A History Revealed, Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press, p. 185.
 * 4) “Wajih Ghali.. The story of an Egyptian writer who lived in Israel,” Al-Ghad channel, July 11, 2016, archived from the original on July 19, 2016, accessed it on September 20, 2021.
 * 5) Ghali, Wajih (June 5, 1957), "My Friend Kamal", The Guardian.
 * 6) Soueif, Ahdaf (July 3, 1986), "Goat Face", London Review of Books. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019.
 * 7) Athill, Diana (1986), After a Funeral, New York: Ticknor & Fields.
 * 8) Ghali, Wajih; Elisabeth Janvier (1965), Les Jeunes Pachas (in French), Paris: R. Laffont.
 * 9) Ghali, Wajih (1965), Mashkaot Harifim U-Ne'Arot Zolot: Roman Aktuali (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv: Mehkarim.
 * 10) Ghali, Wajih; Paul Heijman (1990), Bier in de snookerclub (in Dutch), Amsterdam: Nijgh & Van Ditmar.
 * 11) Ghali, Wajih; Mahir Shafiq Farid; Hanaʼ Nasir (2006), Bira fi nadi al-bilyardu (in Arabic), Cairo: Dar al-ʻalam al-thalith.
 * 12) Ghali, Waguih; Iman Mersal; Reem al-Rayyes (2013), Bira fi nadi al-bilyardu (in Arabic), Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq.
 * 13) Ghali, Wajih (2009), Birra E Biliardo Al Cairo : Romanzo (in Italian), Rome: Gremese.
 * 14) Ghali, Wajih (2012), Cerveza En El Club De Snooker (in Spanish), Sajalin Editores.
 * 15) Starr, Deborah (2006), "Drinking, Gambling, and Making Merry: Wajih Ghali's Search for Cosmopolitan Agency", Middle Eastern Literatures, 9 (3): 271–285, doi:10.1080/14752620600999896.
 * 16) “Papers of a Controversial Writer.. Wajih Ghali’s Diary in Two Volumes on Khan’s Books | Pictures”, Al-Ahram Gate, archived from the original on November 29, 2020, accessed on September 20, 2021.
 * 17) “Wajih Ghali’s Diary: A Milestone in Anglo-Arabic Writing”, The Independent Arabic, February 22, 2021, Archived from the original on March 12, 2021, accessed on September 20, 2021.
 * 18) Wajih Ghali, the mysterious writer in the spotlight, Al-Ahram Daily, accessed on September 20, 2021.
 * 19) “Letters of the Egyptian writer Wajih Ghali reveal the mystery of his suicide”, Al-Ain Al-Akhbariya, February 25, 2020, Archived from the original on September 21, 2021, accessed on September 20, 2021.
 * 20) Starr, Deborah (2006), "Drinking, Gambling, and Making Merry: Wajih Ghali's Search for Cosmopolitan Agency", Middle Eastern Literatures, 9 (3): 280–1, doi:10.1080/14752620600999896.
 * 21) "Waguih Ghali Unpublished Papers", Cornell University Library, Archived from the original on November 9, 2020.
 * 22) Souief, Ahdaf (July 03, 1968), "Goat Face", London Review of Books: 11–12, archived from the original on April 13, 2019.
 * 23) "New Fiction", The Times, February 20, 1964, p. 16.
 * 24) Levin, Martin (June 14, 1964), "Futility Lurked at Every Corner", New York Times Book Review, p. 4-5.
 * 25) Webb, W. L. (February 21, 1964), "Anger in Egypt", The Guardian, p. 9.
 * 26) Bryden, Ronald (February 21, 1964), "Out of the Cradle", New Statesman: 301.
 * 27) Kroll, Stephen (20 February 1964), "Doubter on the Nile", Times Literary Supplement: 141.
 * 28) West, Anthony (September 12, 1964), "Playing the Game", New Yorker: 203.
 * 29) Ades, Albert; Albert Josipovici (1919), Le livre de Goha le Simple, Paris: Calmann-Levi.
 * 30) Josipovici, Gabriel (24 July 1986), "Out of Egypt", London Review of Books, 8 (13), archived from the original on 09 October 2018, accessed 29 April 2013.
 * 31) Marcus, James (March 12, 1968), "State of Shock", The Nation: 349–50.
 * 32) Aspden, Rachel (December 4, 2012), "Review of Beer in the Snooker Club", The Guardian, archived from the original on December 6, 2010, accessed April 29, 2013.
 * 33) Qualey, M. Lynx, "Beer in the Snooker Club: Egypt Then and Now", AGNI Online, archived from the original on November 9, 2016, accessed on April 29, 2013.
 * 34) Stuhr-Rommereim, Helen (July 24, 2011), "Revisiting Beer in the Snooker Club in Revolutionary Times," Egypt Independent, Archived from the original on November 15, 2016.
 * 35) Azimi, Negar (September 11, 2011), "What Egypt's writers do now?", New York Times Book Review, p. 35.
 * 36) Ghali, Wajiih (August 10, 1967), "An Egyptian Watches Arab Anger Rise", The Times, London, p. 6.
 * 37) Ghali, Wajih (1 September 1967), "An Egyptian's report from Israel", The Times, London, p. 9.
 * 38) Ghali, Wajih (11 January 1968), "An Egyptian in Israel": 50–52.