American journalist and author Lucette Lagnado said she still sees the charm in the city that her father never stopped calling home.
The Cairo-born Lagnado returned to Egypt for the first time since the publication of her international best-selling book “The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, an intricate account of her Jewish family’s expulsion out of Egypt nearly half a century ago.
“It’s like a redemption to what happened to my father and my family, she said of her experience in Cairo at the book-signing event held on Wednesday at Diwan Bookstore’s Zamalek’s branch. “I found that redemptive quality of the Egyptian character.
The book recounts her father’s life and times in Cairo as a boulevardier and businessman active in the cosmopolitan hotspots day and night. The family’s subsequent departure was devastating for the father, who never accustomed himself to the immigrant life of New York, where they ultimately settle.
Lagnado, winner of the 2008 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, discussed her emotional experience returning to her Cairo home. A neighbor, remembering the family, invited her to return to Egypt for good.
“My American friends don’t understand when I tell them my father felt estranged in America, she said. “My father did not think that the values of America were better than the values of Egypt.
The guests at the book signing event formed a diverse crowd reflective of the cosmopolitan Cairo of the past. Two Norwegian women living in Cairo discussed their adoration for the book. A former American University in Cairo professor reverting between English, French and Arabic commented on the accurate depictions within the work, and offered her knowledge of Cairo’s past for Lagnado’s next book that will focus on the author’s mother.
A Cairo businessman stood about in true Signor Ferrari form, giving life to Lagnado’s father’s character within the room. The older man was sure he could find someone who the author could speak with, pulling out his phone and calling his contacts. In French, he recalled what had changed.
“Le Parisien does not exist, he said of the café that Leon Lagnado had frequented. Café Riche, he noted, was still around.
“You brought so much back from my childhood, another guest said in English.
Lagnado arrived in Cairo to finalize plans to translate the book into Arabic.
The Diwan Bookstore, where the book had been in stock, invited the author when they learned of her presence in Cairo. An email only to store customers sent the morning of the event gathered an impressive collection of guests.
The non-fiction book focuses on a controversial period in Egypt’s history, when the government forced 80,000 Jews and one million Europeans out of the country. Lagnado explains the situation in her work: “Suddenly, ‘foreigners’ weren’t welcome in the very place where most of them had felt so profoundly at home, she writes.
“I think it left a hole in the place [when the Jews and Europeans left], Lagnado said.
In her book, Lagnado doesn’t elaborate much on the political motivation behind Nasser’s deracination policy.
“Nasser’s speeches brimmed with venom. He vowed to rid Egypt of all ‘foreigners,’ to eliminate the Jewish state, and stamp out the last vestiges of colonialism and the monarchy, she writes. “The charmed life they [Jews of Egypt] had known under Farouk and his late father, King Fouad – the sense of being one of the most cosseted and most privileged Jewish communalities in the world – was coming to an end.
The book, Lagnado asserted, isn’t politically motivated. It primarily focuses on the personal difficulties her father endured following his departure from his beloved country. The heart of the book is less about what Egypt did to her family than what happened to her father. “It was really the destruction of my family. That’s the theme of the book.
“Egypt in the book is a double edged sword, said Hind Wassef, a partner at the Diwan Bookstore. “It’s a fact of life, she’s telling it from a very human point of view.
Wassef said the circumstances surrounding Lagnado’s story may have ended the “glory days of Egypt, a time when Cairo and Alexandria were regarded the two most cosmopolitan cities in the Middle East, but the book could still relate with modern day Egypt. “It’s in the people. The people still remember, she said.
Another guest found significance in the book’s focus on the lives of Egyptian Jews. “We as Egyptians know nothing of Jews. It’s like they never existed, Ghada Abdel Haq said. “Her parents are as Egyptian as my parents.
Working on her next book, Lagnado was uncertain of her future but acknowledged that the thought of returning to Cairo had occurred to her.
“It’s very tempting, she said. “I don’t know where I belong. It’s always between New York and Cairo.
