Taxi - Khalid Al Khamissi

Taxi brings together 58 fictional dialogues with Cairo cabbies recreated from the author's own experience of traversing the city. It takes the reader on a roller- coaster of emotions as bumpy and noisy as the city's potholed and chaotic streets.

"It's a book about the petty, daily frustrations of Egypt's working poor as they scratch out a living in the almost unworkable metropolis of Cairo. It's a book to make you feel guilty you ever tried to bargain down a cab fare in any poor country"

Chicago Tribune

"A novel that dresses down sharp social and political commentaries into the simple words of work-a-day taxi drivers, a rather daring approach here as censorship is a real issue. But his daring has sent the book flying off shelves"

Christian Science Monitor

"Taxi's brilliance is that it captures the point at which cabs cease to be just a means of transportation and instead become a space for debate and exchange"

Foreign Policy

"Taxi plucks startling beauty and poetry out of the cacophony of everyday life. Khaled Al Khamissi reawakens our dulled sense of wonder, outrage, and sorrow, and that is an awesome achievement"

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