Angel of Cairo

Lewis has written a script. Eighty pages in ten days. Hardly slept... He taps the bag on his shoulder with a delicate fingertip like it's a hot kettle. Cliff is then given ten minutes on the problem with Lewis's printer. Then the history of problems with his printer. Then problems with printers more generally... Robert Clifford is in Cairo to present his latest film for a festival prize. It has taken seven gruelling years of his life to make and is definitely NOT a film about his mother. But his moment in the spotlight is not quite as he scripted. There are rumours the jury could be influenced. Nobody can lay their hands on a copy of the film. And even his girlfriend thinks it's about his mother. Cliff's producer has not turned up but sent his nephew Lewis Proudfoot instead. Lewis has a script of his own to sell and is determined that everyone should hear about it. Then a meeting is arranged with a group of the festival organiser's friends, who may or may not be revolutionaries... Angels of Cairo is a fast-moving, acerbic comedy told over a single day but capturing a lifetime of angst and self-doubt.

Gary Raymond is a novelist, critic, editor and broadcaster. He is the presenter of The Review Show for BBC Radio Wales, and is editor of Wales Arts Review. He is the author of two previous novels, The Golden Orphans (described by The Spectator as 'intense, unnerving and brilliant') and For Those Who Come After, as well as a non-fiction book, How Love Actually Ruined Christmas. His second novel, The Golden Orphans, was picked as best new crime novel in The Spectator and was previewer's pick of the month for June 2018 in The Bookseller. It remained on the WH Smith fiction chart for six weeks. He has edited a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, from short story anthologies to political memoir. As a critic he has been seen in the pages of The Guardian and heard on BBC Radio Four's Front Row and BBC Radio Three's Sunday Morning programme.