In 1973 I travelled to Egypt to study Arabic at Cairo University for six months as part of the BA in Modern Languages at the Polytechnic of Central London. War broke out shortly after I arrived, and I spent a far more eventful study abroad than the Poly had planned.
This little book began as a memory jogger. I was planning a novel set in Cairo during the October 1973 war, but I struggled to recall the details. So during 2014 I wrote these nine essays, about one a month, publishing them on my website as they were completed. Friends and relatives seemed to like them. I prepared this book by putting the original essays in chronological order and tidying up loose ends.
As I wrote the essays, the fog of four decades cleared. My research for the novel filled some of my memory gaps, especially the lead-up to the war. By the time I began writing the novel I was able to easily transport myself back to 1973 - or at least a version of 1973 cobbled together from memory traces, retellings of the stories, and published accounts of the period and its events. I’m delighted to say that the novel Cairo Mon Amour is now complete.