I ended up in Brussels thanks to an Excel sheet and ‘Beer in The Snooker Club’.
If you ask Omar Kashmiry (32) how he ended up in Brussels, the answer is twofold: thanks to an Excel sheet and a book: ‘Beer in The Snooker Club’. We meet the Egyptian architect on a sunny day at the Place des Martyrs to talk about this influential novel, moving countries and spending the summer in the city.
by Catherine Vanheusden
I actually came here by coincidence. I was planning to come to Europe to do my master’s degree in architecture, but didn’t have any idea of which city or country. I just had some criteria and personal preferences and suddenly found myself with a lot of options. So I made an Excel sheet with all these parameters and a whole rating system to help me make a decision. Based on this, Brussels was the winner and my number one (laughs).
How did that work out for you?
When I first came here, I didn’t have expectations and didn’t know the city very well. I didn’t find my spot right away but a few months in, I realized I really loved Brussels. But even then, I thought it was because it is the first city I have lived in after leaving my hometown, and I was just longing for a change. Temporarily moving to other cities but continuing to visit Brussels almost every weekend helped me realize I really feel at home here.
Brussels is the perfect place to experiment and it is a laboratory for architects since it is still developing and not settled yet. The northern quarter is the best representative of that fact: there is a whole neighbourhood that suffered a lot but is now witnessing a huge transformation and is full of opportunities. We’re not there yet, but I can see the progress and potential. This summer I will be working a lot on a project by the City of Brussels called ‘Playcation’. The idea is simple: we will be doing interventions in a big public space in the northern quarter in collaboration with socio-cultural organisations to get people, young and old, to play.
Sounds like a busy summer, hopefully there will be some time left to read! Can you tell me about the book you chose, ‘Beer in The Snooker Club’?
I met an old friend at the military in Egypt who recommended the book. From the way he talked about it and the look in his eyes, I could tell he was very excited about it. It’s a story about a young man during the 1950’s in Egypt. This was a critical period in the country because it was postcolonial, the time after the occupation of the English and the revolution. Ram, the main character, is part of the aristocratic class but rebels against his whole environment. The author is very open and transparent about this. He does not hide behind words, which makes the story so interesting: hearing someone criticize the context they are living in themselves.
It made me realize how we get affected and learn and grow from a book.
How familiar are you with this context?
The book is very personal to me because a lot of it is relatable. I read it for the first time when I was in the military after the revolution, the so-called Arab Spring. Ram on the other hand is living during Nasser’s regime, and also witnesses the military taking over the country after a revolution in 1952. He constantly refers to the postcolonial world, to the ways the English have affected his country and to how it felt when he went to England himself. I am currently rereading it after emigrating from the country and I can see Ram also experiencing that in a way. One paragraph really stands out to me, a conversation between Ram and his teacher:
“Why do you want to go to England?” he asked me.
“I don’t know, sir. Nothing in particular. To see what a pub is like, perhaps. To walk in Piccadilly and to listen at Speaker’s Corner.”
I too was faced with this question many times when I came to Belgium and it always made me feel a bit awkward. It is a question I don’t understand. People who migrate will recognise it very well, because it comes in many different forms. Ram’s answer is very relevant because it makes the very subtle point that he simply does not know. These ideas and thoughts about leaving Egypt and going to this new country really guided how I thought about my future back in the day. It is really interesting to reread something that I read ten years ago and that has encouraged me to take certain steps and really influenced me. In a way, it is what brought me here. To see and to listen and to walk. This made me realize how we get affected and learn and grow from a book. A lot of what shaped Ram, has shaped me as well, even with two decades between us, with both of us being Egyptians, moving from the Middle East to Europe and having all of this history and a heavy bag on our shoulders.
‘Beer in the snooker club’ was Ghali’s first and last book. It is considered an autobiographical novel and he put everything he had into it, which makes it very valuable. I am still amazed about the fact that this was his debut novel, because he managed so well to transport the reader to his world, in his head, and to make the reader live through him. This feeling makes the book unforgettable to me. So my friend did me a huge favour by recommending it to me.
As a reading ambassador, you now get to recommend it to others.
Being a reading ambassador is a nice opportunity to represent some of the communities, ideas and thoughts that I identify with: as an architect, an activist, an Egyptian in Belgium, a Bruxellois, and a storyteller. It is great that I can share all these aspects of myself by recommending a book.
Nederlandstalige samenvatting:
Omar kwam in België terecht dankzij een Exceldocument en ‘Bier in de snookerclub’, waardoor hij zich realiseerde hoeveel invloed, kennis en persoonlijke groei je uit een boek kan halen. Hij herkent zich enorm in de zoektocht en overpeinzingen van het hoofdpersonage over migreren van Egypte naar Europa met een rugzak vol geschiedenis en ervaringen. Omar voelt zich helemaal thuis in Brussel, volgens hem de perfecte plaats om te experimenteren als architect.
Lees het volledige Nederlandstalige interview
Omar tipt: