221x142mm, 460 pages, Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-914325-00-7 Price: £27.50 Available: April 2022 Alexandria Adieu
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Alexandria Adieu
A Personal History: 1939-1960 By Adel Darwish A twin narrative: one of the most insightful journalists of our time tells the enchanting story of this hauntingly beautiful city.
Adel Darwish has been a distinguished figure in the Press Gallery at the House of Commons through some of the most tumultuous political upheavals of the modern age. His reporting and analysis have informed literally millions, both across the Middle East region and internationally, and he is a regular figure across satellite news channels the world over.
In Alexandria Adieu, he shares an eyewitness account of life in this uniquely cosmopolitan and ancient city between the Second World War and 1960. Over the course of this period, he witnessed the exodus of over 100,000 Alexandrians dispersed worldwide and the sad demise of many of the city's great institutions and traditions. This book tells that story and captures the lost charm, drawing not only on his own personal experiences in the city of his birth, but also on the rich historical background and the deep literary heritage. |
About the Author
Adel Darwish, is a British author, historian, political commentator and a veteran journalist, parliamentarian reporter & commentator based at the Press Gallery in the Palace of Westminster. Darwish has authored five books. Darwish has worked for most Fleet Street Papers as a foreign correspondent covering Africa and the Middle East since the Six-day war in 1967 through to the late 1980s. He knew and had meetings with most leaders of the region. Although Darwish is on record for opposing giving journalists awards for doing their job, the Next Century Foundation for Peace awarded him, in 2008, the Cutting Edge Prize "for outstanding new ideas and contributions to peace and understanding via Journalism". In 2017 he accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Media Council" for his outstanding work as a journalist, covering many of the major political events of the last half a century and becoming a mentor for many aspiring young journalists. As a playwright and dramatist, Darwish has been involved in British theatre, with some of his plays performed at the Edinburgh Festival and at the Young Vic and several Fringe theatres in London during the 1970s. Most of his plays were adaptations of poems and short stories from Africa, especially from Egypt. A writer, broadcaster and commentator, Darwish continues to contribute, mostly live, to major national and international networks on a variety of subjects. His expertise on international affairs covers conflict, conflict resolution, water politics, the Middle East and Africa. |
From the foreword by Michael Binyon:
What a magnificent portrait of a city! Adel Darwish has given us an achingly nostalgic memoir of his native Alexandria – a bustling port that since Greek and Roman times has been a beacon of learning, culture and religious inspiration, the cosmopolitan capital of the eastern Mediterranean. Once a flourishing international centre, the city has seen better days. The Jews, Greeks, Europeans and hotchpotch of nationalities proudly identifying as Alexandrians have been expelled or drifted away; the patisseries and cake shops, the salons and ballrooms where sophisticated society and intellectuals gossiped by day and danced by night have closed; the tramways that ran along the coast, linking monuments, public gardens and elegant villas, are dilapidated; and the public buildings, former emblems of civic pride, are now drab, neglected and decaying.
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But his book is more than regret. It is also a celebration of a city made famous by the writers E.M. Forster and Lawrence Durrell and the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy....
He brings also sharp political judgments, formed from many return visits as a British journalist and commentator, on Egypt’s challenges and politicians, the venal as well as the venerated. In short, he gives us a rich travelogue and unrivalled biography of himself and his beloved Alexandria, a city the world deserves to know better.