Novel
Habashi’s Café
قهوة حبشي
- Year
- 2019
- Places
- A town in the Nile Delta · Benha
- Period
- From the nationalisation of the Canal in 1956 to the 1970s
Dedication
إلى زوجتي التي كَسَرنِي رَحِيلُها..
To my wife, whose departure broke me.
About the novel
At the entrance to a Delta town, beside the bus stop and the police post, stands Master Habashi’s mud-brick café, where everything that happens in the town and the surrounding hamlets is told and retold. Its owner is a reformed thief still mocked as “Abu Widan”; with him works Dahi, an orphan from Upper Egypt who arrived barefoot at fourteen and has spent twenty years working for food and a bed in the corner. Around them move Umm al-Khair, Aziza and three homeless old men, in a story of love and need that ends when the café is demolished and survives only in the memory of the villagers. Dedicated “to my wife, whose departure broke me”.
From its pages
Habashi’s Café
Habashi’s Caféلم نَنَمْ ليلتَها إلَّا بعد أن تأكَّدنا، أن ضاحي عاد إلى القهوة مثلما كان.
We did not sleep that night until we had made sure that Dahi was back at the café, as before.
Habashi’s Caféفلم يكن يعرف إلى أية وجهة يتجه، فكل بلاد بحري تشبه بعضها البعض، إلى أن صادفته بلدة وقع في غرامها.
He did not know which way to turn, for all the villages of the Delta look alike, until he came upon a village and fell in love with it.
Habashi’s Caféرفع كُلٌّ منهما يده مُحيِّيًا الآخر، والتقت عيناهما دون كلام، لكن الغرض تم، فعينا يوسف كانتا تشعران به وتُعزِّيانه، وأحسَّ هو بالراحة، كان في حاجةٍ لمن يتلطَّفُ به..
Each raised a hand in greeting, their eyes met without a word, yet the thing was done: Yusuf's eyes felt for him and consoled him, and he felt relief; he needed someone to be gentle with him.
Habashi’s Caféفما الذي أخذه من الناس غير الهَمِّ والخُذلان، وإن كانوا يمقتونه فهو يمقتهم، وإذا كانوا يلعنونه هو الآخر يلعنهم ويلعن البطون التي أتت بهم.
What had he ever got from people but worry and betrayal? If they loathed him, he loathed them; if they cursed him, he cursed them back, and cursed the wombs that bore them.
Habashi’s Caféمشهٌد بسيط، لا حولَ له ولا قوة، بنت بضفائر ومريلة ورنَّة صوتها كالثَّغْثَغَة، لكنه أقوى منه، أقوى بمراحل، قوته في قدرته على قتل لحظة الشر عندما تشتد عليه..
A simple scene, helpless and powerless: a girl with plaits and a school pinafore and a voice that rings like a child's lisp; yet it is stronger than he is, stronger by far, its strength lying in its power to kill the moment of evil whenever it bears down on him.
Habashi’s Caféمنذ أن كُنَّا فوق أكتاف أمهاتنا ونحن نراها، وما من شيءٍ يحدث في البلدة إلا ويُحكى فيها، حتى الذي يجري في العِزَب والكُفُور التي حولنا، كان يأتينا خبره في ساعتها أو أقصاها اليوم التالي.
Since we were carried on our mothers' shoulders we have been looking at it; nothing happens in the village without being told there, and even news from the hamlets around us reached it within the hour, or the next day at the latest.
Words of a narrator or a character belong to the novel's world, not to the author's personal views.
Editions · Translations
What was written about it
Habashi’s Café
- ReviewArabic
رواية "قهوة حبشي".. ممر لعابري القرية ومهمشيها
“Habashi’s Café”: a passage for the village’s travellers and its marginalised
Habashi’s Caféal-ain.com - ReviewArabic
رواية 'قهوة حبشي' سردٌ حكواتي للظالم والمظلوم
“Habashi’s Café”: a storyteller’s narrative of oppressor and oppressed
Habashi’s Caféannahar.com - NewsArabic
"قهوة حبشي" رواية جديدة للكاتب كمال رحيم عن دار "العين"
“Habashi’s Café”, a new novel by Kamal Ruhayyim from Dar al-Ain
Habashi’s Cafévetogate.com