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Albert Cossery

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Albert Cossery


Born
in Cairo, Egypt
November 03, 1913

Died
June 22, 2008

Genre


Albert Cossery (November 3, 1913 – June 22, 2008) was an Egyptian-born French writer of Greek Orthodox Syrian and Lebanese descent, born in Cairo.

Son of small property owners in Cairo, at the age of 17, inspired by reading Honoré de Balzac, Albert Cossery ( Arabic: البرت قصيري) emigrated to Paris. He came there to continue his studies which he never did devote himself to, writing and settled permanently in the French capital in 1945, where he lived until his death in 2008.

In 60 years he only wrote eight novels, in accordance with his philosophy of life in which "laziness" is not a vice but a form of contemplation and meditation. In his own words: "So much beauty in the world, so few eyes to see it." At the age of 27 he published his first
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Average rating: 3.91 · 4,616 ratings · 638 reviews · 27 distinct worksSimilar authors
Proud Beggars

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4.03 avg rating — 1,292 ratings — published 1955 — 47 editions
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The Jokers

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3.75 avg rating — 831 ratings — published 1964 — 3 editions
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The Colors of Infamy

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3.86 avg rating — 760 ratings — published 1999 — 16 editions
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Laziness in the Fertile Valley

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3.93 avg rating — 600 ratings — published 1948 — 27 editions
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Men God Forgot

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3.94 avg rating — 426 ratings — published 1940 — 29 editions
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A Splendid Conspiracy

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3.97 avg rating — 255 ratings — published 1975 — 13 editions
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منزل الموت الأكيد

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3.79 avg rating — 194 ratings — published 1944 — 2 editions
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طموح في الصحراء

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3.97 avg rating — 139 ratings — published 1984 — 9 editions
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ألوان العار: الرواية المصورة

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3.94 avg rating — 34 ratings2 editions
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Les affamés ne rêvent que d...

3.47 avg rating — 19 ratings2 editions
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Quotes by Albert Cossery  (?)
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“كان عليه أن يدرك شيئا بالغ البساطة وهو أن سلطة الشرطة الدائمة هي في امتثالها لكل الأنظمة”
Albert Cossery, The Jokers

“كان أحد مباديء فلسفته يقوم على أساس أن المشاكل تُحل من تلقاء نفسها إذا لم نعرها أدنى اهتمام”
Albert Cossery, The Colors of Infamy

“What drew him towards the outside was not the student, not the goat, not even the man in the down-at-heel shoes who joined them. Simply the street, like a blanched life-drained cadaver, fettered his whole attention. Never before had he seen it look so monstrously real, lit by the tired face of the moon, quiet and grave. There was about it, as it were, a sort of despairing dignity. You might have thought that the street had been killed by the weight of its suffering, that it had that moment died after long agony. It was old, the street, hobbling and twisted with age. Some of its houses were already crumbling in ruins. For years now it had sheltered the petty life of men. And now they had elected it to express the extent of their weariness. Naked beneath the prodigious brightness of the moon, it revealed all that men hid in the depths of their beings, the little hopes, the hates so huge. No longer could it hide anything; it cried out its despair from every corner.”
Albert Cossery, Men God Forgot

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