On the Greenwich Line

Shady Lewis, born 1978, is an Egyptian novelist and journalist whose writing centres on cultural and political intersections within and beyond the Arab world. He lives in London, where he has spent many years employed by the National Health Service and local authority housing departments, working with homeless people and patients with complex needs. He has published three novels to date-The Lord's Ways (2018), On The Greenwich Line (2019), and A Brief History of Genesis and Eastern Cairo (2021)-each of which engage with the social history of Coptic Christians and trajectories of migration from Egypt to the West. On The Greenwich Line has been translated into German and French, and is forthcoming in English from Peirene Press in 2025. The French translation was shortlisted for the Prix de la litte rature arabe 2023.

A desperately funny novel about the immigrant experience... Laugh out loud funny, the humour of [On the Greenwich Line] is an expression of a polite despair and a nihilism which recalls Albert Cossery. - Richard Jacquemond, LE MONDE DES LIVRESShady Lewis makes fun of everything and everyone with great humanity: we become attached to these characters who are more lost than crazy, who do what they can keep going. Lewis, with scathing humour and a healthy lightness of touch, examines everything: from the god Khnum to Margaret Thatcher via Karl Marx, freedom of expression, Facebook, romantic breakups, colonization, identity and religious tensions - nothing escapes his acerbic and lucid gaze. A delicious tragicomic novel about contemporary society. - Nina Chastel, ORIENT XXISet between the Arab world and Europe, this novel is distinguished by its impertinent, sometimes ironically loving, style, and imbued with a typically British humor.- Shathil Nawaf Taqa, THE COUNTERShady Lewis's novel is the equivalent of an injection of intellectual vitamins. To be taken without moderation!- Damien Aubel, TRANSFUGEA brilliant satirical novel.- Muriel Steinmetz, L'HUMANITEA novel where the burlesque rubs shoulders with the tragic.- Laurent Pfaadt, HEBDOSCOPEOn the Greenwich Line is both deeply despairing, and perfectly funny and joyful.- Hassina Mechai, MIDDLE EAST EYEThis introspective novel delights with its finesse and depth, and invites us to look at reality from the author's sensitive perspective. In painfully beautiful, funny and tragic prose, Shady Lewis skilfully and accurately expresses the difficulty of being... excluded and stigmatized because of their difference.- Nadia Leila Aissaoui, L'ORIENT LITTERAIREThe absurdities of everyday life are intertwined with memories of childhood, as the Middle Eastern immigrant is confronted with Western prejudices. [The book is] bitingly funny, and the Egyptians as well as the English are torn to pieces. You will not be bored On the Greenwich Line.- Frederique Roussel, LIBERATIONThe final scene of the novel is a firework of darkly absurd humor. This ease in marrying sentiment and irony is the mark of Shady Lewis's great mastery. On the Greenwich Line is his first novel translated from Arabic - we await the next one. - Lisbeth Koutchoumoff, LE TEMPS