On the Greenwich Line
Published on 18. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
176 pages
978-1-908670-95-3 (ISBN)
Description
In a run-down East London housing office, migrants and frustrated local government employees cross paths and try to work out what the latest policy means for them. As a favour to his friend, one man finds himself roped into organizing the funeral of Ghiyath, a young Syrian refugee. It is not until his life collides with Ghiyath's death that he realises just how much he has in common with those who've fallen through the cracks.
On the Greenwich Line traces the absurdities of racism, austerity, and bureaucracy in contemporary England. This is a story about systemic failure and personal courage, and about London and its many lost souls, told with wisdom, humour and profound humanity.
On the Greenwich Line traces the absurdities of racism, austerity, and bureaucracy in contemporary England. This is a story about systemic failure and personal courage, and about London and its many lost souls, told with wisdom, humour and profound humanity.
Reviews / Votes
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 LIVRES
Shady 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 XXI
Set 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 COUNTER
Shady Lewis's novel is the equivalent of an injection of intellectual vitamins. To be taken without moderation!
- Damien Aubel, TRANSFUGE
A brilliant satirical novel.
- Muriel Steinmetz, L'HUMANITE
A novel where the burlesque rubs shoulders with the tragic.
- Laurent Pfaadt, HEBDOSCOPE
On the Greenwich Line is both deeply despairing, and perfectly funny and joyful.
- Hassina Mechai, MIDDLE EAST EYE
This 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 LITTERAIRE
The 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, LIBERATION
The 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
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
198 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-908670-95-3 (9781908670953)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
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.