The Lazy Ones

'Cossery elevated idleness to an art form' The Times

Three brothers live with their father, uncle and maid in a dilapidated Cairo suburb, spending as much time as they possibly can doing nothing whatsoever. But Serag, the youngest of the three, has started having crazy ideas that threaten to shatter the household’s torpid equilibrium. He wants to find a job. If only he wasn’t so sleepy.

Written in 1953, in the louche Parisian hotel room Albert Cossery called home for fifty-seven years, The Lazy Ones is a playful celebration of Cossery’s belief in the ultimate dignity of indolence in an alienated society. As he remarked, ‘the more you are idle, the more you have time to reflect. Laziness is a critical position by which to judge the world.’