Nadia Wassef - A Cairo bookseller

In its 90 years, the ABC has collected the sounds and sights of Australia from the centre of power in Canberra to the most remote Indigenous communities, documenting both everyday life and the moments that changed Australia. Now the ABC has announced that 58 staff may lose their ...  Show more

John Pickup started his career at the ABC in the mailroom in Sydney, but quickly moved on to the sound effects department. He worked in television on the first broadcast as well as on the Melbourne Olympic Games. But he returned to his first love radio and went to on to work acro ...  Show more

“Bookstores typically have been a place where I escape myself—and [a place where] I find a new self,” says this week's podcast guest, Nadia Wassef. “I feel like I walk in there and the world is open to me.” The author of the newly released Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookse ...  Show more

This week we’re joined remotely by Nadia Wassef who in 2002 co-founded Cairo’s popular Diwan bookstore with her sister, Hind Wassef and their friend Nihal. Now, with three Masters degrees in her pocket and a separation from Diwan, Nadia is embarking on the arduous journey of writ ...  Show more

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany about his bestselling novel The Yacoubian Building. It was the Arab world’s number-one bestseller for five years running after it was published in 2002. The Yacoubian Building interweaves the stories of a group of ...  Show more

KaramāSūtra meets the 90-year-old Lady Margaret Bullard who, 50 years ago, unknowingly started a movement that led to the creation of Dubai's first community library for English-language books. Join us as we trace the story of a shipment of yo-yos in 1969 that is now a collection ...  Show more