In Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller, Nadia Wassef presents a captivating narrative that spans her two decades at the head of Diwan, a network of 16 independent bookstores in Egypt. A graduate in social anthropology, creative writing, and comparative literature, Wassef has featured three times in Forbes’ list of the two hundred most powerful Arab women. 

Her first book is a portrait of a businesswoman who succeeds in establishing herself in the niche market of the Egyptian book. It is also a striking insight into contemporary Egyptian society, explored through its relationship with the written word. Shelf Life considers questions such as: What do Egyptians read? What is their relationship with books? What does this reveal about the local context? The book has now been translated into 11 languages.

In reading Shelf Life, one cannot help but think of Alaa El-Aswany's novel The Yacoubian Building, which offers a kaleidoscope view of Egypt in the 2000s through the lives of the inhabitants of a building in central Cairo. Wassef’s narrative follows a thematic pattern, combining the narrator’s private life, the various aspects of corporate life, and the different sections of the bookstore.

In 2001, a simple dinner with friends sparked an idea in Nadia and her sister Hind. In an ideal world, they said, they would love to open a bookshop in Cairo. A few months later, on 8 March 2002, Diwan was born. With two partners, Nadia Wassef opened the first branch in a former gymnasium in the heart of the Zamalek district. It was a space for people, with coffee, books, and free tote bags.

Diwan is unique among Cairo’s bookshops: it boasts a café, a boutique, a catalogue of unpublished books in four languages (Arabic, English, French, and German) and, above all, free shopping bags designed with the library's logo that “became a cultural status symbol on the streets of Cairo (...)”. Diwan’s offerings range from cookbooks to self-help books and classics of Arabic literature. Their best-sellers are Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and Machiavelli's The Prince.

The story of Diwan’s beginnings is replete with difficulty. According to a story Nadia tells in Shelf Life, prior to the store’s opening, an Egyptian journalist dismissed her and her colleagues as “bourgeois housewives,” who were squandering their time and money. He contended that Egyptians, with the vanishing Egyptian middle class, had lost interest in reading. In time Diwan’s success would defy this dismissive, pessimistic outlook.

Diwan are no strangers to censorship and intimidation either. They have been targeted many times, sometimes by the government, sometimes by private actors. In the summer of 2004, Nadia was summoned to a government censor’s office because a shipment of books from the UK was being held up at customs. The reason cited was the supposedly offensive title of the cookbook, The Naked Chef by British television Chef Jamie Oliver. They were told that the title had been deemed to “undermine public morals.” It is simply part and parcel of being the founder of a successful Egyptian bookshop that one will have to lock horns with the censors every once in a while. Fortunately, the intervention of a good lawyer, along with sending coloring books to the relevant official’s children, facilitated the release of the shipment. 

Even Diwan’s employees have been known to take censorship into their own hands. Nadia tells a story of when an employee incorrectly informed a customer that The Arabian Nights (in Arabic Alf Layla wa Layla) is out of stock because he deemed it to be a pornographic novel. Nadia asked the employee to inform the customer that the book was, in fact, available.

In the country that saw the birth of Library of Alexandria, the most famous library of Classical antiquity, the distinction between bookshop and library is not always easy. Both are referred to by the Arabic word “maktab.” It is up to the customer to make the distinction according to the context. This can lead to funny situations, such as when a customer was surprised that Diwan employees refused to allow books to be returned. Another customer complained about the high price of the books and asked for a discount.

The women leading the business have also been the targets of lewd behavior, such as one customer wearing “the long white tunic of the Gulf Arabs,” whom Nadia Wassef advised to read the Arabian Nights, and who responded by giving her a piece of paper bearing his hotel room number. 

To deal with these attacks, the narrator has no choice but to adopt a strict stance towards her male employees, to the point where she has been nicknamed “Terminator.” Nadia requires her employees to wear uniforms and be impeccably clean. During interviews, she asks them if they could work the evening shift or only the morning shift – with the understanding that availability in the evenings is much appreciated. The sales clerks had their pockets sewn and spy camera pens were installed to catch and deter thieves. Nadia recognises that her demanding management techniques are in stark contrast to those of her associates.

In Shelf Life, Nadia also opens up about the challenges of marriage and parenthood. She refers to her two ex-husbands only as “Number One” and “Number Two” and speaks with refreshing honesty about her difficulties with her own daughters. Yet there is a danger that this discussion of her private life has the potential to break the rhythm of a book that is ostensibly about Diwan.

Since the creation of Diwan, six branches have been forced to close due to lack of profitability, including the one located within Cairo University. Nadia Wassef has since jumped ship, but in the historic shop, the spirit of Diwan remains intact: an eclectic literary catalog and employees who take great care of a wide range of customers. The free shopping bags are gone, but Diwan remains a friendly, open, deeply needed space for lovers of the written word.