Cairo Rooms: Diwan's new book reads the city through 35 artists' homes

Diwan Publishing, the publishing house of the Cairo bookshop chain Diwan, has a new book that looks at the city from the inside. Cairo Rooms photographs and writes about more than 35 private spaces that belong to people in Cairo's arts and culture scene: their kitchens, bedrooms, balconies, bathrooms, living rooms and studios.

Among the homes in the book are those of the artists Huda Lutfi and Motaz Nasr, of MAD Solutions co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab, and of the Iranian journalist Amir-Hussein Radjy. Younger voices are there too, such as the 26-year-old painter Omar Gabr, whose studio is in Shoubra.

The idea came from the photographer Yehia El-Alaily, who has been documenting rooms and places across Cairo for years and took it to Diwan co-founder Nadia Wassef. She told CairoScene she was not especially drawn to interiors, so she turned it into a different question: how does a city like Cairo show up in the private homes of the people who make its culture? She then brought in the art historian Zein Blanks as co-author, for a younger eye and for the cold calls to emerging artists.

The result is eight chapters, each written by a different author and each about one kind of room, so that reading it feels like walking through a home from the entrance onwards. Emma James worked on the art direction and styling of the rooms, and Ghalia Elsrakbi oversaw the book's art direction and design. Wassef has said the aim is not pretty pictures of pretty interiors but lived experience, and how a city and its spaces talk to each other.

Most books about Cairo look at its monuments. This one builds an unofficial record of the city through everyday rooms, which makes it a good gift for anyone who loves the city's art scene. Diwan sells its own titles through its bookshops; the price and launch events had not been announced in the report.