The Jokers

Who are the jokers? The jokers are the government, and the biggest joker of all is the governor, a bug-eyed, strutting, rapacious character of unequaled incompetence who presides over the nameless Middle Eastern city where this effervescent comedy by Albert Cossery is set. The jokers are also the revolutionaries, no less bumbling and no less infatuated with the trappings of power than the government they oppose. And the jokers are Karim, Omar, Heykal, Urfy, and their friends, free spirits who see the other jokers for the jokers they are and have cooked up a sophisticated and, most important, foolproof plan to enliven public life with a dash of subversive humor. The joke is on them all.

Albert Cossery (1913–2008) was born in Cairo. He moved to Paris at the age of seventeen, where he would live for the rest of his life. Some of his books translated into English are Men God Forgot, The House of Certain Death, The Lazy Ones, and Proud Beggars. In 1990 Cossery was awarded the Grand Prix de La Francophonie de l’AcadTmie Frantaise.

Anna Moschovakis is a poet and translator who lives in Brooklyn. Her translation of Georges Simenon’s The Engagement was published by NYRB Classics in 2007.