Albert Cossery – författare

Människorna Gud glömde är en samling noveller som utspelar sig i Kairos slum: en brevbärare söker hämnd för den behandling han utsatts för av gatans befolkning, en plåtslagare är besatt av att få veta varför barberaren dödade sin hustru, en tiggarskola hotas av nya farliga idéer Albert Cossery befann sig mitt i det franska 1940-talet, i kretsen av bland andra Raymond Queneau, Boris Vian, Albert Camus och Jean-Paul Sartre. I denna debutbok spelar han ut hela sitt register: i ett färgrikt språk som liknar sagans blandas mänsklig värme med svartsyn och civilisationskritik, filosofiska betraktelser med konkreta beskrivningar av den sociala verkligheten.När Människorna Gud glömde utkom i Frankrike 1940 väckte den stor uppmärksamhet, inte minst för sina beskrivningar av sjaskig sexualitet. Henry Miller såg till att den blev utgiven i USA.Albert Cossery föddes 1913 i Kairo i en kristen medelklassfamilj och dog 2008. Han fick sin utbildning i franska skolor och skriver på franska. 1945 flyttade denna författare och dandy in i det hotellrum på Hôtel la Louisiane i Paris 6:e arrondissement där han fortfarande bor. Människorna Gud glömde är debuten i ett sparsmakat författarskap. På sextio år har Cossery skrivit åtta böcker.Pressröster:»Människorna Gud glömde är en förtjusande liten novellsamling i klassisk stil där i princip varje mening skulle kunna tjäna som skolexempel på utsökt utmejslad prosa.«Fabian Kastner, Borås Tidning»Det är inte utan att man hoppas att så många som möjligt upptäcker dessa hemliga men i någon mån stora noveller. De förtjänar att bli lästa.«Annina Rabe, Svenska Dagbladet

‘Serag had heard that men worked, but these were only stories that one told. He never believed them completely.’Three brothers live with their father, uncle and maid in a dilapidated Cairo suburb, spending as much time as they possibly can doing nothing whatsoever. Galal has been asleep for seven years, occasionally waking to eat; Rafik moves between his bed and attempts to sabotage his father’s planned remarriage. But Serag, the youngest of the three, has started having crazy ideas that threaten to shatter the household’s torpid equilibrium. He wants to find a job. If only he wasn’t so sleepy.Written in 1953, in the louche Parisian hotel room Albert Cossery lived in for sixty-three years, The Lazy Ones is a playful celebration of Cossery’s belief in the ultimate dignity of indolence in an alienated, materialistic society. As he remarked, ‘the more you are idle, the more you have time to reflect. Laziness is a critical position by which to judge the world.’

His eyes “shine with a glimmer of perpetual amusement”; his sartorial taste is impeccable; Ossama is “a thief, not a legitimated thief, such as a minister, banker, or real-estate developer; he is a modest thief.” He knows “that by dressing with the same elegance as the licensed robbers of the people, he could elude the mistrustful gaze of the police,” and so he glides lazily around the cafe´s of Cairo, seeking his prey. His country may be a disaster, but he’s a hedonist convinced that “nothing on this earth is tragic for an intelligent man.”One fat victim (“everything about him oozed opulence and theft on a grand scale”) is relieved of his crocodile wallet. In it Ossama finds not just a gratifying amount of cash, but also a letter — a letter from the Ministry of Public Works, cutting off its ties to the fat man. A source of rich bribes heretofore, the fat man is now too hot to handle; he’s a fabulously wealthy real-estate developer, lately much in the news because one of his cheap buildings has just collapsed, killing 50 tenants. Ossama “by some divine decree has become the repository of a scandal” of epic proportions. And so he decides he must act. . . .Among the books to be treasured by the utterly singular Albert Cossery, his last, hilarious novel, The Colors of Infamy, is a particular jewel.

Laziness in the Fertile Valley is Albert Cossery’s biting social satire about a father, his three sons, and their uncle — slackers one and all. One brother has been sleeping for almost seven years, waking only to use the bathroom and eat a meal. Another savagely defends the household from women. Serag, the youngest, is the only member of the family interested in getting a job. But even he — try as he might — has a hard time resisting the call of laziness.