Albert Cossery

Albert Cossery was an Egyptian-born French writer who lived most of his life in Paris but wrote only in French. His novels, set in Egypt or an imaginary Middle Eastern country, pay tribute to the humble and the misfits, and include The Lazy Ones, Proud Beggars, The Jokers, Men God Forgot, and The Colors of Infamy. He was nicknamed "The Voltaire of the Nile," and from 1945 he was a well-known figure at the Hotel La Louisiane in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.