Emigrating Home

by Yasseen

Yasseen, a Westerner of Egyptian descent, 'goes home' after the Suez Crisis to an Egypt he doesn't know. He is soon in as much emotional turmoil as he was in the Britain he left, but he feels accepted and stays

Genres: Memoir

332 pages, Hardcover

First published April 10, 2002

About the author

I was born in Jamaica,completed school and university in England and then joined my Egyptian father in Cairo.

I have spent my working life in radio, TV and newspaper journalism, in the Middle East: in Egypt, Oman and Dubai.

I started writing my memoir, "Emigrating Home," as a challenge when some friends in Muscat decided to have a writing competition to see what we could all do in the space of a month.

I took the memoir more seriously, completing it while working as a subeditor(copy editor)on a newspaper in order, believe it or not, to keep myself awake. (My greatest talent is to be able to fall asleep anywhere any time.)

My working day started at 2pm, but the reporters' copy did not show up on my computer screen before 5pm. One day I fell asleep. One of my colleagues woke me when some copy arrived and I found a large envelope addressed to me on my desk. It contained a photo of me lolling back in my chair asleep with my hat over my eyes. An accompanying note asked: "How much will you pay for the negative?"

The newspaper's chief photographer had taken the picture. It only needed a caption like, "South of the border..." to be a still from a Hollywood movie about some place in Latin America.

After that, I edited what I had written in Muscat and expanded on it.

I am now writing a sequel to "Emigrating Home" which will be more about my life in Egypt. I am also writing a ghost story set in the West Indies, which I think may become a novel.

Don't, by the way, expect anything too,too serious of me. I have had some pretty devastating experiences and suffered some great losses. But one can either laugh or cry. I prefer the former even if the laughter turns cynical at times.

I probably should use the social websites, but I don't.

Reviews

[June Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an easy to read story. Well written and definately worth the price. A memoir whose main character was easy to like. Yasseen had an unusual life but even as a child, took it all in stride.
It was fascinating to see where or how he ended up.

[Martin Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emigrating Home is a powerful book, deeply serious under a finely constructed and often very funny veneer of anecdote and memory. It deals with the tangle of identities that a young man finds himself in in the early 1950s as he wrestles with the implications of a family which brings together Egypt and Jamaica, and a culture that mixes the serious and devoted Englishness of the Caribbean with the distant magnetism of the Near East. Educated first in Jamaica and then at English public school and university, the author is always shrewd and always affectionate in his view of both his countries. The unstable equilibrium is upset by the Suez War and the possibility of the author's being drafted into the British army to invade his father's - his third - country. The consequences are earth-shaking. With his sense of self and of belonging changing in his hands, the author travels for the first time to Egypt, to his father's family and a culture and a language of which he knows little or nothing. This is the "emigrating home" of the title, and once again he provides us with a remarkable take on Egypt in the 1950s, sensitive and puzzled. He manages to retain the freshness of perception that - half a century later - still offers striking cameos on cultural contrasts large and small - like the complete inability of an Englishman to walk like an Egyptian. There is much more, and every page a pleasure to savour more than once.
Read this book: at a time when identities are in flux everywhere in the world, Yaseen's journey has a great deal to tell us about crossing cultural boundaries with grace, humour, tolerance and humanity. We must hope that there is more to come from this splendid writer.

Martin Rose

[Jonathan Chamberlain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yasseen was one of those who, like myself, found their horizons enlarged and their loyalties curiously shaped by being caught up by the surges of the British Empire. He was born in Jamaica, educated in Britain and then went to live with his father in Egypt. The title of this book exactly encapsulates the dilemmas of identity in which he was caught up.

With such an interesting story to tell, I wish Yasseen had told it more directly, more deeply, more interestingly. What was it like, the assault on his senses, as he entered this 'home' that wasn't yet his home, this Egypt? What about his life in Jamaica, his life in England? He doesn't tell us. He opens with a character George who is a teacher? a journalist? It seems he might be both. But almost immediately George is dropped and we are told something else for no obvious reason. We are seduced for a while by the obvious charm of the man so we continue but in the end, I for one could not finish the book.

Don't get me wrong. Yasseen writes a series of entertaining episodes in which his various identities are exposed. But it's all very bitty and after a while I as a reader had to ask myself why I was reading this, where was it taking me? And I didn't know. But what I did read was very gentlemanly,redolent of a certain class and period. But that class and period are dead as dodos. If Yasseen could bear to read Naipaul, Kapuscinski and other harder edged writers and then rework his story I would certainly be prepared to read that book but I sense that Yasseen is too clubby to want to do that.

[Nibs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful memoir of a man born of Egyptian and West Indian descent. Being born in Jamaica and schooled in England, this book is about his journey of self discovery and of his Egyptian roots. It's witty and so insightful to the self struggle most mixed race people face. The author has worked in Radio, TV and newspaper journalism all his life.

Found this book very witty....loved it!!!!

[Phleabas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of a young man who was born in Jamaica and educated in England who emigrates 'home' to Egypt, where his father was from, having never been there before! This all takes place at the same time as World War II and the Suez Crisis in the 1940s and 1950s. The book is very funny, especially when Yasseen is trying to adapt to the language and customs of his 'home', I enjoyed it very much.