Books: Alexandria: City of Memory

In the first half of the 20^th century, three writers, E.M. Forster, Constintine Cavafy, and Lawrence Durell, all drew their inspiration from the now vanished cosmopolitan city of Alexandria, Egypt. To each Alexandria was a living pulsating entity, a city that actually lived, a city that had a personality and a city that had an “influence.” Each believed that Alexandrian (“the city”) inexorably shaped the character and destiny of those who lived within it and as such each of these writers drew from the lifeblood that Alexandrian offered. Michaeal Haag in his book, “Alexandria: City of Memory,” weaves an intamite portrait of these three men into the context of the city and its worldly inhabitants. Alexandria then is not Alexandria now. In the first half of 20^th century the city had a unique multicultural flavor composed of three quarters, the Greek, the Italian and the Jewish plus some French and British. Haag calls this period the “heyday of cosmopolitan Alexandria.” In this “heyday,” this milieu of expatriates, Forster, Cavafy and Durell worked and produced some of their finest writing. What has made Alexandria a different place today? Haag notes that the foreign communities that created its unique milieu were later destroyed by political events inside Egypt, notably what he calls, “Nasser’s puritanical socialism.” But Haag’s book is more than a social commentary of early to mid-century Alexandrian. In addition it provides real insight into the character and pathos the make up much of these three writers work. This is a fine nostalgic look at three authors and at a place and time that no longer exists.