Albert Cossery Biography

Albert Cossery, an Egyptian-born French writer, explored the contrasts between wealth and poverty, the powerful and the powerless, with wit and drama. His narratives, typically set in Egypt or other Arab countries, satirize vanity and the narrowness of materialism. His principal characters, often wanderers or rogues, subvert the order of an unjust society. Cossery advocated a philosophy where idleness is a form of contemplation, believing there is "so much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it."