"Snooker in Cairo" tells the story of Ram, an Egyptian "Catcher in the Rye" as the first-person narrator, and his friend Font, their families and friends, as well as his love for the Jewish woman Edna. Ram and Font come from the Egyptian upper class, set in Cairo during the 1950s, a time that is now nostalgically idealized. They are more European than Arab and certainly not religious. Waguhi Ghalis' brilliantly written, sole novel became a beacon for the demonstrators during the Arab Spring, as the Egypt he describes under Nasser, with its repression, closely resembles the present day. The young people disdain the decadent class from which they partially come, yet remain trapped in the comforts they are accustomed to. They appear disoriented and lost, cynical, sensitive, humorous, anarchic, and full of a hunger for life.