A country in crisis

Jack Shenker is a throwback to an older, more romantic age when foreign correspondents were angry, partisan and half-crazed with frustration at the stupidity of the powerful. He made his name in Egypt, arriving with nothing more than a desire to be a reporter. As the revolution began, he moved to Tahrir Square and started to publish stories in the Guardian. He soon began to win awards, notably for a piece on the deaths of African migrants in the Mediterranean. He has continued to report around the world, but his first love remains Cairo. The Egyptians, his first book, is fuelled by anger and frustration. Shenker was there at the dawn of the revolution, lived through the disappointment of the Muslim Brotherhood’s election victory, and is now a witness to the counter-revolution that brought the brutish Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to power.

There is plenty of reason to be angry in post-revolutionary Egypt.