Product Description


Naguib Mahfouz's magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for the first time. The Nobel Prize—winning writer's masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.

The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad's rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s.Sugar Street brings Mahfouz's vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.

Throughout the trilogy, the family's trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.
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Customer Reviews (28)

Inside Look into Middle East Customs
I just finished reading this book which was very intense as someone else has said. It required a lot of thought as reading so it was not a quick read. However, it delved into the customs of the Middle East, especially those concerning women, the home, the father, etc. The true independent American woman would certainly not make it with the customs of the Middle East. I would imagine that most men of that culture are basically the same today. I am not saying it is a bad thing, but the culture is just so different from ours.
For me, it is one of those books I read the one time and am glad I did, but would not read it again. Enjoy!!!

A Nobel prize winner who should be read!
The Cairo Trilogy was one of the most fascinating books I have read. It is extremely well written (the author won a Nobel Prize). It tells us the story of an Egyptian family since way before Egypt's independence from England up to the end of World War II -- in other words, for most of the 20th century. Through the eyes and lives of its members, we are able to follow the history of Egypt and the changes that the Egyptian society underwent without the cold feeling of reading a history book. Quite the opposite, our journey is full of emotions. The characters in the story are very well described, and we are sharing their lives for many years, so that we feel that we know them well. We become familiar with all of their dimensions, nothing is black and white. Even the character who we love to hate in the first of the books in the trilogy, we learn to love in the third book. They become our friends. I fell in love with Kamal, I suffered with Aisha and Amina, and I was able to understand Al Sayid Ahmad and Yasin to the point of forgiving them for their flaws. I am not the most eloquent of writers (as it is probably obvious), and I never write book reviews, but this book so moved me that I feel compelled to tell others to read it. The author's writing is so vivid, I felt I was living with this family in the most beautiful neighborhoods in Cairo-- which I never visited. I almost feel I can go to Cairo now and walk through these neighborhoods without a guide. You should definitely read it. I dare guess that you, like me, will have a hard time putting the book down.

window on a world
An incredible story of an Egyptian family in a tumultuous time that provides a window on the modernization of traditional society, a process that continues in Iraq and Afghanistan today (and many other places, as well).

A great read
It is so well written that it is reason enough to get it, but also if you are into belly dancing it's a must read. It gives you so much insight on 3 very specific periods of time in Cairo that relate with the beginings of cane dancing.

The Cairo Trilogy: A Triumph of Egyptian Literature
The writing of Naguib Mahfouz weaves an intricate tapestry recognized by readers all over the world as the story of humanity. For the readers of western literature, the world of The Cairo Trilogy is unfamiliar and sometimes baffling. But as we move through the trilogy, we recognize the yearnings, the dreams, the anger, and love found in our own life experience.

The trilogy spans three generations of an Egyptian family whose fortunes shape each marvelously drawn character. We truly are immersed in early 20th century Egypt, because Mahfouz is a master storyteller who keeps the reader mesmerized. The reader becomes intimately familiar with the characters -- those beloved and those derided. How is it that readers from Europe, North American, etc. can identify not only with these characters but with their experiences? We see ourselves in this world so different from ours. This is the mark of the great writer.

Mahfouz wrote classics differing greatly in style and story from The Cairo Trilogy. But you will enjoy these works every bit as much. Among his many works I suggest the mythic tale of The Harafish, the novel of a the historical pharaoh, Akhenaten, and the parable The Journey of Ibn Fattouma. It is my belief that all of Mahfouz's works -- including The Cairo Trilogy -- should be on our shelf and read more than once.
The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library)
Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth A Novel
The Harafish
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma



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Product Description
Never has Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than in this outstanding novel, first published in Arabic in 1947. One of his most popular books (and considered by many to be one of his best), Midaq Alley centers around the residents of one of the teeming back alleys of Cairo. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

unbelievable characters
I read Palace Street and found myself putting it down frequently for no obvious reason however it showed me great insight into average upper middle class Egyptians life of the WWI era.

In the book a lot of intelligent insights into life and people are mentioned as asides so I know this author is smart. But somehow the characters are thin.

Midaq Alley had too many unbelievable characters and situations... A prostitute school...a person who deforms people's legs and arms to make them beggars...It reads like a Jaqueline Suzanne novel with none of the plot or suspense.

Surely there are better arabic writers.
I hope so because I am studying the language.

Alley of the World
Made In Hero: The War for Soap

MIDAQ ALLEY is a masterpiece of existentialist satire. It has enough greed, lust, envy and delusion to match Jean Paul Sartre's NO EXIT (famous for the line "Hell is other people"). And this is what makes it such fun.

MIDAQ ALLEY works on so many levels that it's easy to be drawn in, yet indecisive about where to settle. The characters share the confusion (maybe even inspire it). After all, that's their role.

For starters, they inhabit a crowded strip of a crowded Egyptian city in the midst of the second World War. With an unlikely mix of fondness and derision, this home-sweet-home is dubbed The Alley. It is less than a street, yet no less than a microcosm of the planet.

Many humans dwell there. One is a young, humble barber without a trace of ambition. He falls sick with love for a vain young woman who is sick with ambition. Next is the sweetshop owner, the baker's wife, and the wealthy widow--all corpulent. Add the matchmaker, the professional beggar, and the graverobber--all greedy. Not least, there is the businessman, the cripple, and the cafe proprieter--all consumed with lust. There is no shortage of weak men and the shrewish wives who love to pommel them. Tensions are occasionally relieved by the affections of ordinary people for one another, but they are quickly subsumed by layers of resentment and malice--the natural result of people suffocating in close quarters and longing to see the world beyond.

On a local level, The Alley is a meager universe yet enriched by its distinctive character and texture. In fact, the place is itself a character--complete with an odor and a pulsing heartbeat. Like many of the cast, The Alley is even portly--threatening to burst at the seams. Moreover, it is a carnival of the bizarre, an invitation to surrender one's sense of reality.

The effect is not delight, exactly, although it's hard to say what. In spite of that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. However, I was more than halfway through it before I realized that I was supposed to be laughing (with us, at us). It's a sad kind of laughter based on recognition--that this is the human lot. But by the time I caught on, it was too late. There was no turning back. Actually, I couldn't wait to turn the pages.

cool
for something written in the early 1900s, its a charming novel. it gives a great insight on how women can be manipulative, confused, desperate, and yet charming.

Midaq Alley
Naguib Mahfouz's Midaq Alley is a fictional novel which focuses on the lives of the inhabitants of a neighborhood alley in the heart of Cairo during World War II.Told in a soap opera fashion, Mahfouz introduces the readers to nearly 12 main characters with 7 side characters.With so many characters present, it is easily noticeable that the main literary element Mahfouz employs in Midaq Alley is characterization; and thus all of the characters are crucial to the story's plot.

The main conflict within the story lies in between a struggle between those who dream of leaving the alley for a "more prosperous life" and those who are more than content with staying in the alley forever.This is highlighted between Hamida's desire to become rich and powerful and Abbas' desire to marry Hamida.Abbas, who is a poor barber in the alley, wishes to court Hamida; however, she is not interested until he decides to go work for the British Army just to please her, which was very lucrative during World War II.However, Hamida would not remain content for long as her desire for power was too great, this desire and greed would take Hamida down a path that would not only bare consequences for her, but also for those who loved and cared for her.A side struggle which followed along this same motif was between that of Kirsha, the pedophiliac café owner, and his son, Hussein Kirsha.Hussein Kirsha decides to leave his house because of his immense disgust towards the alley in which his father denounces him.Hussein Kirsha believes that the British Army will forever lucratively support him; however, World War II will soon come to an end and the alley beckons.

However, Midaq Alley does not just focus on this motif with many side stories constantly emerging throughout the novel.From Salim Alwan, the rich business man who believes that his health will forever last him, to Zaita, the scum who controls the beggars of the Hussein district in Cairo and helps people become crippled, to Dr. Booshy, the dentist who has no real license and suspiciously attains gold dentures at low prices.In the end, Mahfouz ingeniously ties all the stories together for a heart-racing climax.A great work, one that should be in the library of all Mahfouz fans, and those who aren't.

Quiet desperation, Egyptian style
Thoreau said that "most men lead lives of quiet desperation."This wonderful novel, set in Cairo, Egypt, during WWII, beautifully illustrates that point.Midaq Alley is just what it sounds like, an out of the way alley in a big city where most of the inhabitants are just getting by, or worse.Some accept their fate, accepting it as God's will.Others are very unhappy with their lot in life and are determined to better themselves.Only one of them succeeds, but it is debatable whether the fate of that character, Hamida, whose way out is prostitution, a life style she is at first seduced into but chooses freely, is better than what she left.

Midaq Alley has a vibrancy and a sense of community that has all but disappeared in modern urban settings, at least in the US, but probably less so in Egypt.All of its residents know each other and are generally there for each other.All of then live by their wits.One man sells sweets.One is a coffee shop owner and openly homosexual, something I found very surprising in an Islamic society of six and a half decades ago.One woman is a matchmaker.One woman is a landlady.One young man is a barber who goes to work for the British in order to be able to marry the girl he loves, a girl who ultimately proves to be unworthy of him, and is his undoing.

One of the reasons fiction is valuable is that it gives us an insight into how societies that we may never otherwise come into contact with function.Midaq Alley is such a book.And, although it is tragic, its ultimate message is that life goes on.I highly recommend this book. ... Read more

Product Description
There are nineteen works of fiction currently available inpaperback from Anchor. Because of the many universal themesof Mahfouz's work, and the variety of titles from which one canchoose, this guide has been designed to provide you with questionsthat can apply to any or all of the books by Mahfouz which you chooseto read.   The questions offer new perspectives and contextfor your conversations.Although each of Mahfouz's novels is a uniquereading experience, in an effort to guide you in making a selection,it is suggested that you might particularly be interested in one ofthe four following titles, each of which represents a different decadeof his career: Palace Walk (1956), MidaqAlley (1966), The Harafish (1977), and The Journey ofIbn Fattouma (1983). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Egypt behind the walls
Naguib Mahfouz is a brilliant writer and a documentarian of an Egypt that outsiders rarely come to discover. He writes about folks of all classes in every kind of relationship throughout generations of time. Children of the Alley (also known as Children of Gabalawi) traces five protagonists who are are sequentially significant figures in the lives of their small precincts. He connects these related figures and explores the effect each has on life in the communities he describes. Each generation adds to our understanding of the intertwining lives Mahfouz depicts and helps us to understand what daily life must have been like in that setting. He is wonderful in his ability to get inside his characters and explore their joys and their loyalties and their pain.

The progenitor of the series of powerful men who are at the center of this story serves as the constant reference point. His descendanta arrive one after another in Biblical fashion and we can sense Maguib's intention to parallel the great stories of our background.We are never quite sure if Gabalawi is still living or exerting influence on the scene yet without his existence in some form or other, there is little to hold the story together. I understand that an earlier translation of the Children of Gabalawi is more faithful to the intentions of the author so I recommend the reader attempt to secure that version. In any event, this is a fine story written by an incredibly talented author.

Stanley C.Diamond, author of "What's an American Doing Here?: Reflections on Travel in the Third World."

excellent story!!!
this book was so detailed and gave every perspective.it described the lives of people living such a long time ago and in an unrelated culture, yet you can understan every emotion they go through.

Enlightening, but not my favourite Mahfouz
"Children of the Alley" is an elegant parable inspired by the histories of the prophets found within Egypt's monotheistic faiths.I liked this one, but found more enjoyment reading the Cairo trilogy.

Children of Sisyphus
On the surface Children of the Alley appears strange and of dubious intent.Five stories are set in the same place but at different times.Each generation reveres the wonderful deeds of their ancestors, celebrating them with art, poetry, and song.Meanwhile back in the present, people repeat the struggle for justice as if the earlier stories had never occurred.The struggle for justice plays out in the shadow of Gabalawi's mansion.Why is Gabalawi silent while his people suffer?Why do the Children of the alley achieve liberation, only to be discovered back in squalor at the beginning of the next story?What is history?

Mahfouz writes in the style of his other tales of Cairo, a familiar landscape for those who read and love his novels.Each story echoes themes from famous stories from the Bible or the life of Mohammad.The author is saying something about religion as well as history, but what?Take Gabal, for example, a character who appears to be modeled on Moses.Gabal's solution to the problem of the gangsters is to lure them to run into a pit, and then to pelt water and stones down from the windows of the alley to smite them.It is not exactly the Red Sea, but we recognize the essential technique of drowning the creeps.Other recognizable figures - Adam, Jesus, and Mohammad - are given similar through-the-glass-darkly treatment, or so it seems.We are left to speculate who the fifth protagonist in the novel may represent.

This novel is a fun read, and it is even more fun to read in a reading group, while doing enough background reading to compare the protagonists with their models.Lively discussion is sure to ensue, and we ask people to check their knives at the door, just in case it gets too lively.

This is a great novel by a great novelist, a rare case where the Nobel prize should feel honored to have his name associated with it, rather than the other way around.

Fantastic book by a fantastic author
Naguib Mahfouz is one of the powerhouse writers in modern Arab literature and this book is one that should not be overlooked. The author crafts a story around the descendents of a rich Cairene tyrant and creates an allegory for the major motheistic religions of the world. His prose is wonderful and the story flows seamlessly. This book is rather profound in it's attitudes towards human history and social thinking and it's easy to see how this book stoked the ire of fundamental clergy after it's publication. Highly recommended for those interested in modern arab literature. ... Read more

Product Description
AN ANCHOR PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

From the Nobel Prize laureate and author of the acclaimed Cairo Trilogy, a beguiling and artfully compact novel set in Sadat's Egypt.

"[Mahfouz] is not only a Hugo and a Dickens, but also a Galsworthy, Zola and a Jules Romain."--Edward Said

The time is 1981, Anwar al-Sadat is president, and Egypt is lurching into the modern world. Set against this backdrop, The Day the Leader Was Killed relates the tale of a middle-class Cairene family. Rich with irony and infused with political undertones, the story is narrated alternately by the pious and mischievous family patriarch Muhtashimi Zayed, his hapless grandson Elwan, and Elwan's headstrong and beautiful fiancee Randa.The novel reaches its climax with the assassination of Sadat on October 6, 1981, an event around which the fictional plot is skillfully woven.

The Day the Leader Was Killed brings us the essence of Mahfouz's genius and is further proof that he has, in the words of the Nobel citation, "formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind."

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Customer Reviews (6)

"We are a people more given to defeat than to victory.The strain that spells our despair has become deeply ingrained in us.."
Always focusing on aspects of Egyptian social and political history, Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz here depicts three generations of one family as they try to survive the socially tumultuous period between the Six Day War with Israel in 1967 and the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.The loss of the Six Day War in 1967 was a national humiliation for Egypt, which lost the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, as a result.In 1973, President Anwar Sadat tried to regain the lost territories with a surprise attack that initiated the Yom Kippur War, but again Egypt failed to win a strong military victory.Sadat's willingness to negotiate with the Israelis, however, resulted in the Egyptians' regaining of the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for Egypt's recognition of Israel and the establishment of normal diplomatic relations under the Camp David Accords. It made him very unpopular at home.

This tumultuous period was also a time of enormous economic hardships.Sadat had turned away from the Soviets, with whom Nasser had had a close association, and had established the Infitah, his attempt to establish a free-market economy in the desperately poor country.As Elwan Fawwaz Muhtashimi, one of the main characters in this novel says, however, "For this we cursed him, our hearts full of rancor.Ultimately, he [Sadat] was to keep for himself the fruits of victory, leaving us his Infitah, which only spelled out poverty and corruption.This is the crux of the matter."

Alternating points of view among Muhtashimi Zayed, his grandson Elwan Fawwaz Muhtashimi, and Elwan's fiancée Randa Sulayman Mubarak, Mahfouz creates a novel which shows the domestic difficulties faced by educated Egyptian city-dwellers as they try to live their lives under this unpopular, less structured new economic system.Elwan and Randa have been engaged for eleven years, unable to marry because Elwan's salary is too low for him to save enough for an apartment, furniture, and the expenses of a family. Elwan and Randa both work for the same employer, and their relationship with each other and with their boss shows the stresses of their long engagement.The interrelationships between their two families also become tense, and as each narrator describes his/her own feelings, Mahfouz speeds ahead with his story, which at times feels as if it is moving in double-time toward its ironic conclusion.

Keeping the narrative firmly fixed on the everyday lives of his characters, Mahfouz shows the failures of the political system and the desperate acts to which some residents are driven by circumstance.Though the novella is short, Mahfouz provides a rare and often ironic vision of life in Cairo during the period which concludes with Anwar Sadat's assassination.As Elwan walks in the city that night, he sees" a trace of death on every passerby," but as he thinks about the assassination, he believes that "Tomorrow cannot be worse than today.Even chaos is better than despair."nMary Whipple

Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth A Novel
The Mirage: A Modern Arabic Novel (Modern Arabic Novels)
Karnak Café
Morning and Evening Talk

A Humane Eye
The Day the Leader Was Killed by Naguib Mahfouz
(translated by Malak Mashem), (orig. pub. in 1985).

This is a slender novel by Mahfouz, only 103 pages. Mahfouz is one of the greatest writers of the Middle East in recent times. He was recognized for his accomplishment with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Almost anyone in the Middle East you talk to knows of him. He died only this year. It was, in fact, primarily through him that the novel as a form of writing was introduced into the Middle East. And O, how richly! The warmth and humane eye of his novels ponders the streets of Cairo, Egypt, the lives and loves and struggles and sorrows of humanity in the alleys and streets and behind the closed doors. The universal commonality of people is clearly brought to the fore in his deft works.

I don't care to make this a lengthy and needless praise. My purpose here is to hopefully bring to mind some of the noble and lovely, etc. things for for at the least my fuller contemplation.

The story is exquisitely told. It is about the love of a working age couple under the stresses of poverty and political unrest in Egypt. Each chapter alternates between three characters, Elwan and Randa and Elwan's grandfather, Mutashimi Zayed.

The grandfather in the story is a pious Sufi Muslim that has had a wild past. The kind of sweetness and stress on universal love in Sufi Islam comparative to the moreaustere and stern and miltant strains seems to be reflected in Mahfouz's books in general, but that is just a guess.

This book is a fine piece of art. It takes a writer like Mahfouz to be able to find the exact sentences with which to somehow evoke depth of emotion in his characters and the corresponding resonance in his readers in so few words. It takes a truly praiseworthy elegance of mind to trace the inner thoughts and lives of these three characters in a way that really captures depth and dimension, passion and sweetness, anger and despair, not just in them but also in the peripheral characters through their eyes.

There is something about Mahfouz's writings that is like a kind of sunlit illumination. I don't mean this sentimentally. First there is his broad eye which is reminiscent of Tolstoy for how much he takes in and the deft verisimilitude with which he paints a picture of the lives in his story. And there is the soulful focus on people. People are central to his writings. By the sunlit I mean this kind of attention to each person, even to the villains, that somehow is soft like the light of sunset. There is a kind of benevolence and knowing in his novels. He sees a great deal and does not hesitate to portray the dark motives and the evil behaviors but he treats all with a dignity so that there is a kind of perspective that is not inimical to the command to love ones enemies.

This book was also for me a chance to reflect on the exterior pressures such as finances and family on love. The portrayal of poverty and the sense of its oppressiveness and strain was also made more palpable. Elwan was not able to make enough money to pay for a flat and so he had to postpone marrying Randa until her parents began to intervene and her lecherous and ambitious boss sought to make the most of the opportunity and to enlist her in his project like a useful item rather than an end in herself. The dignity and the pride and humbleness in the midst of poverty is portrayed in a moving way in these characters, each with their perspectives and cares and perceptions and emotions. The grandfather's love for his grandson as he is nearing the end of his life with the distance of age is also movingly depicted.

Reading a book on the Triune God and going in increasingly rarified air, it was a true respite to turn to this novel on a sleepless night.

Such a novel I think depicts simply and elegantly and truthfully something that is often denied now, put out of mind as strange and foreign, or even militantly and openly attacked, the perception that men and women have natures, that love can grow up naturally and more or less purely between them, and that these routes can be abandoned by warping ways that effect our character, such as ambition, which stifles and paves over the possibility of true love in a man or woman's breast, by solidified ways of thinking and basing their life which negate the other, the Thou, preventing the fullness of the I and Thou relationship. It is in this sense a good and gentle reminder of the natural and a beacon to seek it. One of the sins condemned in Romans 1 is the lack of natural affection (such as a mother who abandons her baby). C.S. Lewis discusses this concept as it was conveyed in an archaic meaning of the word kinde in a poem by George Herbert:

"In Herbert's `I the unkinde, ungratefull' (from Love) the modern meaning would be disastrous; the idea of general beneficence fromman to God borders on the absurd. Herbert is classing himself with `unkind mothers' and `unnatural children' as one who, with gross insensibility, makes no response to the arch-natural appeal of the tenderest and closest personal relation that can be imagined; one who is loved in vain." -C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words, p. 32-33.

This is what I think of when I think of the effects of idolatry, on me and on others. The plastering over of natural affections, the replacement of them with void and drugs and distractions, with buzz and squirminess and shallow vapidity in the presence of the profound and lovely and whole.

In every country it seems there are always those growing up who view their country with a canny eye, who love the people and life they know enough to caressingly portray truth about it, granted with the imperfection and limitation of man. But they are always signs, it seems, to point us all, any who will heed, to truths which are plain to all except when pushed out by idolatry.

A significant testimony of modern Egyptian history
The Day the Leader Was Killed is a succinct but significant work in contemporary Egypt. Naguib Mahfouz, through his sober and lyrical prose, has skillfully woven one of the darkest political backdrops in Egyptian history into his novel. Sealing off the seventies and reaching the threshold of a new decade, President Anwar al-Sadat implemented the Infitah, an open-door economic policy that would expedite the country forward to modernization. Like many of Mahfouz's works, this story is told in alternating first-person narratives by three characters--Muhtashimi Zayed, a pious, retired family patriarch; his grandson Elwan Fawwaz Muhtashimi; and Elwan's strong-willed, beautiful fiancée Randa Sulayman Mubarak. The story builds upon around this middle-class family and through the family's perspective zooms a picture of the social, economic, religious, gender and interpersonal aspects of the larger society in Egypt. For the patriarch, who devoted his whole life to prayers and religious rituals, his life was nothing but loneliness. He was especially despondent that the younger generation drifted from the Koran to whose life made a substantial influence. The old man could not forget "the woes of the world" (25) when he thought of his beloved grandson. Randa, like all her female contemporaries, faced gender challenges and the clash between traditional values and modern ideals.

The novelette evokes the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981. Sadat was saluting troops at the annual military parade when a team of assassins began firing weapons and throwing grenades into the reviewing stand. Sadat, along with 20 others was instantly killed in the deadly attack. The underlying cause of the fatal massacre traced back to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, which led to a negotiated peace between the two countries in the following year. The historic agreement brought peace to Egypt but no prosperity. The economy still slumped with no trace of a turn-around. Poverty-stricken Muslims and Copts in Egypt rubbed in friction and exploded into some gruesome round of violence in the Cairo slum. This is the very socioeconomic backdrop on which Mahfouz adroitly set his novel. Like the Cairo Trilogy and many of his works, Mahfouz captures and chronicles the most crucial of his own times. 4.0 stars.

Three generations in modern Egypt
"The Day the Leader Was Killed," by Naguib Mahfouz, has been translated into English by Malak Mashem. The short author bio on the book's opening page notes that Mahfouz was born in Cairo, has received the Nobel Prize in literature, and "is the most prominent author of Arabic fiction published in English today."

This novel takes place during the "Infitah," an "open-door" economic policy in place under Egyptian President Sadat. The story is told in alternating first-person chapters by three characters: Muhtashimi Zayed, a retired old man; his grandson Elwan; and Elwan's fiancee, Randa. Both Elwan's and Randa's families face economic troubles, and the young couple faces uncertainty regarding their own future.

This novel is a fascinating look at modern Egyptian family life. I found it interesting that while the book deals with three generations of Egyptians, it is only characters from the youngest and oldest generations that actually "speak" directly to the reader. Mahfouz looks at the issues of gender, economics, religious faith, and family ties in the lives of these two families and the larger community. I was particularly moved by Mahfouz's portrayal of the old man's spiritual life; Muhtashimi Zayed is a Muslim in whose life the Quran is an important element. I was also intrigued by Mahfouz's exploration of the challenges faced by the modern young Arab woman, caught between contemporary ideals and traditionalism. Overall, a compelling multigenerational portrait.

Life In Egypt
Najib Mahfouz in his compact dry story details the hardships faced by the people of Egypt from the economic liberation. Intifah, Anwar Sadat's open-door economic policy has increased disparities between the rich and poor, creating havoc in lives of its citizens. In this economic meltdown is Fawad and his fiance Randa whose commitment for each other is tested by realities of times.

In a subtle undertone, this novel has reflections to the struggle faced by masses presently in the middle east. Interesting aspect of this novel are the personal battles faced between self righteousness vs corruption, advancements vs traditions. ... Read more

Product Description
Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz reaches back millennia to his homeland’s majestic past in this enchanting collection of early tales that brings the world of ancient Egypt face to face with our own times.

From the Predynastic Period, where a cabal of entrenched rulers banish virtue in jealous defense of their status, to the Fifth Dynasty, where a Pharaoh returns from an extended leave to find that only his dog has remained loyal, to the twentieth century, where a mummy from the Eighteenth Dynasty awakens in fury to reproach a modern Egyptian nobleman for his arrogance, these five stories conduct timeless truths over the course of thousands of years. Summoning the power and mystery of a legendary civilization, they examplify the artistry that has made Mahfouz among the most revered writers in world literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Nice stories.
Voices from the Other World : Ancient Egyptian Tales by Naguib Mahfouz is a nice little book of stories, classically structured fables of Pharaohs, princes, princesses, mummies and the afterlife. The stories move along very smoothly, with little excess or indulgence. There is a feeling that Mahfouz and his translator give just what is necessary here.

The final story, "A Voice from the Other World" is an amazing vision of the Soul witnessing his Body's death and the surrounding people and world. One of my favorite aspects of the story is the narrators objective, detached visions of the interior life of some of the people who surround his death. Most of the stories take place in the ancient past, except "The Mummy Awakens," which features a Turkish/Egyptian professor who is a Francophile a rich man who seems dismissive of ancient Egypt, to his peril.

All of the stories are good and could even be read to children as a lesson about Egypt and it's glorious past.

Nice!
Having just returned from a wonderful Egypt tour, I wanted to read books published by the famous author.I was not disappointed!

Masterful stories
Mahfouz stunned me with The Cairo Trilogy, so I sought more stories to read.This book will be my next Book Club choice because each short tale is full of interesting topics to discuss.It is such fun to feel like you are visiting these people who lived in Egypt so long ago. Mahfouz makes them real, heart breaking, funny....another beautifully written book.Highly recommended.

Iloveroad movies...
I love this tales.They put me on the way of adventure.They are big flashes-back to far away countries whereof I dreamt during my whole youth.A second reason of joy in my lecture of that special book, is he tale with the title 'A voice from the other world', where a mummy from the 18th Dynasty awakens to explain what happens when a man passes to the other side.He was 26 years old when he died.He tells us how he felt when he saw that his family and friends wept;and with the embauming of his corpse... He tells us how people are mistaken.That the only thing that counts is the happiness and the sunshine in life after dead..''I yielded myself t an infinite love... I sank into eternity!'' Death is neither painful nor terrifying, as mortals imagine. If they knew the truth about it, they would seek it out as they do with well-aged wine, preferring it over all others. - I must read more ofd those wunderful books.Mahfouz is a great poet. Johan Everaert

... Read more

Product Description
Once again, Naguib Mahfouz has fashioned a highly charged, tightly written tale of intersecting lives that provides readers with both an engaging and powerful story as well as a vivid portrait of life in Egypt in the late 1960s. Set in Alexandria, Miramar tells the violent, tragic story of the former grand hostelry Miramar, now a pension run by an elderly grand dame and a young country girl. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

A Nostalgic Recollection
A writer at the end of his prime visits Alexandria for a restful break. As he sits in an easy chair in a pension run by his old friend, he sees two worlds juxtaposed: in the first he recalls his own past, his heady days of idealism and political activism; in the second he examines his life against those of the other, younger, guests at the pension. He tries to reconcile his own views and visions and dreams with those that he sees around him. Touched with a despairing sense of terminal nostalgia, he manages to re-examine his own life in its entire context -- and still be able to smile.

A landlady, a servant girl, five men--and a death
At the center of Mahfouz's "Miramar" is the peasant girl Zohra, who flees to Alexandria in order to escape the traditionalist mores of her family. She finds employment as a servant at a pension, where five boarders have recently rented apartments, and "it is precisely her determination to emancipate herself, that the men about her admire...or resent," John Fowles writes in an introduction to the novel. "She stands for Egypt itself."

The story of the pension--and the killing that propels its plot--is told from four perspectives, each one revealing not only more about the incident but also details about the political ties and the backgrounds of the inhabitants of the Pension Miramar. At the opening of the novel, Mariana, the landlady and a widow twice over, lets a room to Amir, a retired journalist and lifelong bachelor, "driven into cold and meaningless neutrality" because of party differences by the likes of the "Muslim Brethren, whom I did not like [and] the Communists, whom I did not understand." One by one, the other four lodgers, as well as Zohra, present themselves, until the pension is full and the stage is set.

For Zohra, the Miramar becomes a safe house and a trap. Her family members attempt to flush her out of the building, but Mariana and the lodgers protect her from their rash, desperate attempts. But among her protectors she also becomes a source of jealousy. The two older residents regard the young woman as they would the past--what was or what might have been: youth, beauty, lost opportunities. The three younger men see her as representing the future: liberation, openness, confidence.

They all--old and young--vie for Zohra's attentions, and one of them dies, leaving everyone a suspect. "Everyone fought with him," Amir says of the victim. Indeed, like the various factions of Egypt, they all fought with each other, making and breaking alliances according to their shifting internecine struggles--both cultural and political. While the novel is a concise page-turner and a masterful character study, the whodunit aspect is not even the point; instead, "Miramar" is a window looking back on the post-Revolution Egyptian psyche and the disillusionment of its partisan elements.

Great Insight into Egypt
I loved the book and its depiction of daily life in Egypt. you can almost feel wanting to visit cairo while reading it. I felt the same reading Arab Voices.

An Egyptian Rashomon
Pension Miramar engages a fellaha (a young peasant woman), who ran away from her village to avoid a forced marriage.
She becomes the centre point of the attention of all the pension's inhabitants, because of her simplicity and natural beauty, but also for her ambition to get out of her traditional role of maid without education. The fellaha's battle to escape her humble fortune is mingled with her emotional love life and the more or less violent advances of some residents.

Like Kurosawa in his magisterial movie 'Rashomon' (based on a short novel by Ryunosuke Akutagawa), the evolving story is told from (here) four different angles (persons), revealing slowly the real motives behind the different clashes.

This novel contains some typical Mahfouz characters, like the career man, the wealthy playboy or the impostor ('employed by one master, serving secretly another').
Some themes are also familiar: 'If you have power, you have everything', or 'Everyone else around us behaves as if they didn't believe in God's existence'.
The novel is also a reflection on the failure of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952: 'But was there an alternative? Only the Communists or the Muslim Brotherhood.'

This is surely a worth-while read, but the book has not quite the finesse of its Japanese example.

What a plot and so many twists too-----Brilliant
It was a fascinating read. The place,the time and the characters-- only mahfouz can write a book this way ... Read more

Product Description
The bestselling first volume of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy is being published in paperback to coincide with the hardcover release of Palace of Desire, the second book. His "masterwork" is the engrossingh saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Eqypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (75)

great
Readingthe first makes u want to read the other two.The father and mother are unforgetable. One of the few books while reading that I was startled by an event, thought WOW.

Palace Walk
This book was a fascinating view into the life of Egyptian citizens early in the 20th century. The character development was interesting and progressed along the lines of the historical progression.Women's places in society were the central focus. I would recommend the book.

Very satisfied
I felt that the info was as presented to me and I was pleased with the book and the speed with which I received it

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
In this, the first novel in the highly-respected Cairo Trilogy, we meet the family of Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. He is well-regarded socially and feared privately by his family: his timid but strong wife Amina, his beautiful and vapid daughter Aisha, his outspoken daughter Khadija, his moody first-born son Yamin, his jingoistic son Fahmy, and his passionate and sensitive son Kamal. The story is an epic telling of the ins and outs of their lives in post-WWI Cairo, as the country tries to move on and win its independence from England.

The books works brilliantly for many different reasons, not the least of which is its readability. Mahfouz was a great philosopher, but knows how to discuss life by showing more than telling. Through the fears, motivations, and social mores than these characters are made to deal with, the reader gets an almost complete depiction of life in this most exotic locale, but they are base and human in ways that are universal. Not much "happens" per se in the way of high drama, but your interest is kept because of how closely you relate to each character in their way, and the realistic problems they face. Beautifully-written scenes and dialogue come one after another, and creates a fascinating world that you can imagine yourself living in. It's a testament to Mahfouz's talents that at the end of this 500 page book, I immediately picked up the second volume and continued reading with the same amount of pleasure and interest. A great contribution to world literature.

A Great Novel and Great Cultural Insight
This nobel prize winner's book sat on my reading shelf for a decade. It sat too long. Clearly a great work of fiction, many levels, a view into a foreign culture, the depth and basis of close relationships, universal themes, history, social systems ... a very rich portrait. For modern Americans, his portrait of turn of the century (1900) Cairo will seem remote. As we face a world where the European enlightened Christian/humanist/rationalist worldview seems to have won economically, but faces challenges from many other cultures socially (including our own from fundamentalists), it helps to more deeply understand the cultural/anthropological worldview. Most people believe what they believe because that's what they know. That may be the true human nature. Our technical/profesional, democratic, commercial society may be the outlier." ... Read more

Product Description
Old, ill, and comforted only by his memories, patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad watches as his grandsons become respectively a communist, a Muslim fundamentalist, and the paramour of a high-ranking politician. Reprint. 30,000 first printing. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

excelent condition great price
I was sceptical because of the price of the book but it came in great condition. Thank you!

Sugar Street by Naguib Mahfouz
Here is Mahfouz's great finale to his classic Cairo Trilogy, an under-the-radar series that, perhaps due to its origins, is not as well known as other major works but is every bit as searching and distinguished. Here the war-torn Cairo of WWII in Palace of Desire is more subdued, at a dubious peace with the British but still rife with underground political intrigue. The al-Jawad family is growing older, and the younger generation is coming into their own and the story's forefront. Like the previous two novels, this is a very humane book, short on action and plot twists but full of numerous moments of perception, with deep philosophical undertones throughout. Here they are mostly of aging and regret, and there is a somber tone always in the book's atmosphere. What works best in this book is the character of Kamal, lovestruck in the previous book but here wiser and resolute yet profoundly melancholy. His siblings are not as filled-out here; Yasin winds down with a tolerant wife, Khadija is a rather one-note motherly figure, and poor Aisha lives a life filled with pervasive grief. The younger generation gives the book a bit of hope though, yet through this ray of light lies the book's primary weakness. Khadija and Yasin's children were difficult for me to differentiate, and as characters were not written with the same sharpness that the al-Jawad kids were. Also the timeline here seemed to move at a noticeably quicker pace than in the previous two books, making it difficult to keep tabs on everyone's age and making their growing infirmities come as a bit of a shock. In any case it is a must for fans of the previous two books, and the ending itself is subtle and first-rate.

boring
the story portraits the husband as a god and the wife is his forever subsevient wife.Boring .

graceful finale
Sugar Street is a graceful finale to the Cairo Trilogy. I think the Kirkus Review above gives away too much of the plot. I'm glad I didn't visit this page until having finished the book!

I strongly recommend reading the first two books before this one. If you skip directly to Sugar Street, you miss out on all the history which gives added meaning to the events in the final volume.

The sad conclusion of this Egyptian family's saga.Wonderful!
This is the third book of the trilogy by this renowned Egyptian author.Originally written in Arabic in the late 1950s, many of his works have been translated into English.I'm very glad about this because his unique perspective is an important one, especially now, when everybody and his brother had an opinion about what is going on in the Middle East.These books were written way before Muslims were perceived as a threat, and male dominance in families was an unquestioned way of life.We see the politics of the time through the eyes of one family.And so we learn about the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s in Egypt through the eyes of very specific people.

Even though the author has a tendency to be a bit flowery and wordy for my taste, I found it perfectly all right in this book.Specifically, in this and his other books, he gets into the thought processes of the character named Kamal, who he has followed from childhood to adulthood.In the first book he is a child looking at the world with wide-eyed wonder; in the second book we see him in love; and in this last book we meet him as a bachelor schoolteacher observing the world around him.The patriarch of the family, his father, is aging and so are all the other members of the family.There are births, deaths, tragedies and romances all told against the background of a changing world.

Reading this series of books somehow seemed to make me part of this family.I felt their joys and sorrows on a person-to-person level.It didn't matter that the world they lived in was different from mine.They came alive for me and I found myself thinking about them as I went about my day.Now that the series is finished, I will miss them.

This last book is perhaps the saddest.I would have liked the story to be happier.But this is the story the author told.I cannot change that.However, I do know that the time I spent reading this book left me richer. ... Read more

Product Description
In his final years, Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz distilled his storyteller's art to its most essential level. Written with the compression and power of dreams, these poetic vignettes, originally collected in two books, The Dreams and Dreams of Departure, here combined in one volume for the first time.

These stories telescope epic tales into tersely haunting miniatures. A man finds his neighborhood has turned into a circus, but his joy turns to anger when he cannot escape it. An obscure writer finally achieves fame-through the epitaph on his grave. A group of friends telling jokes in an alley face the murderous revenge of an ancient Egyptian queen. Figures from Mahfouz's past-women he loved, men who inspired him, even fictional characters from his own novels-float through tales dreamed by a mind too fertile ever to rest, even in sleep. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Fragments of thoughts
Not a story but pieces and fragments of dreams and thoughts.I found this book strange and not interesting enough for deep and long thinking; too much mind work for a book;I wouldnt mind if it were enjoyable in some sense but I did not find it so.

Dreams of a literary giant!
Egyptian Nobel Laureate Mahfouz, who was nearly assassinated in 1994 at the age of eighty-two, survived the attempt on his life and lived twelve more years, long enough to compose a book about his post-assassination dreams.

The late Mahfouz transcribed these dreams with captivating lyrics shrouded with mystery, and developed his actual reveries into short stories.

The book consists of a series of allegories connected to the attempt on his life, as well as previous experiences of people he knew, places he went, situations he faced, all laced with the ominous political atmosphere in which he lived in.

Unlike Freud, Mahfouz recited his dreams without interpretations, and left it up to the reader to construe the content and to decipher the enigma.

The two hundred and six scenes he dictated to his secretary are obscure, perplexing, and concise. He frequently began the vision with joy, nostalgia, and astonishment and ended in horror, uncertainty, and confusion. His dreams are a troubling mixture of the deceptively ordinary, and the frightfully eccentric constituting ten years of everyday experience.

You have to be a Mahfouz fan and an avid reader of his literature in order to appreciate this volume. Otherwise, you might find it boring and confusing. Overall, the book will present an interesting literary experience of a prolific author and a literary giant.

... Read more

Product Description
Hamid Burhan, a retired government employee, and his loyal wife Saniya have built themselves a home in the southern suburb of Helwan, away from the hustle and bustle of Cairo itself, where they raise their son and two daughters, expecting life to remain as blessed as it was in the photograph of the happy family at a picnic in a Nileside park in the early 1930s. Events in the wider world impinge—wars, revolution, peace with Israel—while Saniya and the old house in Helwan remain the bedrock of the family’s values. But everyone else is buffeted in one way or another by the tumultuous processes of change in Egyptian politics and society.

In this compact novel written in 1982, Naguib Mahfouz again uses a family saga, as he did in his Cairo Trilogy, to reflect on the processes of enormous social transformation that Egypt underwent in the space of a few generations in the twentieth century. ... Read more

Product Description
In paperback for the first time, Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's bestselling Palace of Desire will be published to coincide with Doubleday's publication of Sugar Street, the third and final volume of the Cairo Trilogy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

fantastic
You all rock the book came in great condition and way sooner then expected. Thank you!

Palace of Desire by Naguib Mahfouz
This second volume in Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy takes off several years after the end of the first book, and finds the al-Jawad family is in a subtly different place. The patriarch Ahmad has lessened his tyrannical hold on the family and his wife Amina resigned to bouts of sorrow over the death of her son Fahmy, and continues to live her quiet life. The children are older now, and the bulk of the novel deals with their maturation, how they communicate with their parents, and how they deal with love and careers. The main focus is on the sons Yamin and Kamal, and where they were sullen and mischievous in the first book they are more self-aware and contemplative here. Mahfouz was well-regarded as a philosopher, and here he speaks through his characters in more depth than he did in the first volume on universal themes of romance, obligation, and one's position in society. While that is a strength here, it also hinges on the book's main weakness for me in that it widely ignores the women of the family, each of whom were introduced in such detail in Palace Walk and whom I wanted to learn more about. Plot-wise the story is more focused in Kamal's unrequited love for his best friend's sister, and Yamin's clandestine relationship that leads to tension with his father. The structure, flow, and quality of writing is of the same quality as in Palace Walk- this is an incredibly elegant series of books. A must for any fan of Palace Walk, as it should only be read in sequence with the other books.

Can't Wait!
I haven't read Palace of Desire yet, but the anticipation is growing!!If it is anything at all like the first book of the trilogy, it will be amazing!

boring
too wordy. too complicated. too boring.the father , the husband is the GOD. the wife and the children are his servants. Isnt that something.

A family saga, a view of Egyptian culture, and a history lesson.I loved it!
This is the second book in a trilogy by Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz.I loved the first book and enjoyed this one equally well.Of course, by now I'm acquainted with the characters and the time and place - shortly after WWI in Cairo, Egypt.

This is a family saga.Each character is scrupulously drawn.Sometimes I thoughtthe author used a few too many words to make his point however.That's because he goes into the thoughts of his characters.It does seem real as he describes what they say as well as what they don't say.At times I thought I would like to edit it a bit and make these musings a little shorter, but I soon just accepted it as the author's style and let myself be enveloped in his world.And I must say that this technique made me feel I was inside their heads, viewing their world as they experienced it.I found this very impressive.

The family has been mourning the death of one of their sons during a demonstration several years before, and this sadness is something they live with all the time.The father and patriarch of the family is now in his fifties.He hasn't been womanizing for a while but is ready to go back to his former pleasures in life.The oldest son compromises the family's honor by choosing the wrong bride.And the youngest son is in his late teens and insists on going to a teacher's college instead of studying law.He falls in love and we share his despair when it is not returned.The two daughters are married and have several children each.We get a glimpse into their lives too, and the conflict that one of them is having with her mother-in-law.

One of the best things about the book was the understanding I got about another culture. I perceived it all naturally, through the eyes of the author.He described Egypt at the time he was living it.He didn't try to give me a history lesson.This book was writen in the mid-1950s.It was written in Egyptian for Egyptian people.Later it was translated into English.I couldn't help but contrast it with a best seller I read recently which tried to pack a history lesson into the narrative.Reading this trilogy however, gives me a history lesson without really trying.I liked that.

I totally enjoyed this book as I did the first book, Palace Walk.I would recommend reading that first if you are interested in this trilogy, however, because understanding the background of the characters really enriches the whole story.I have the third book, Sugar Street, waiting for me to read on my bookshelf.I am looking forward to it.

Definitely recommended.And I can certainly understand why Naguib Mahrouz won a Nobel prize for literature. ... Read more

Product Description
Seventeen interlinked tales by the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature follow such themes as betrayal, intrigue, obsessive love, social injustice, reincarnations, and wrongs righted or made worse. Reprint. K. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

Mysterious and Disturbing
Mahfouz goes for some interesting detail in adult content...

His writing weaves itself around my brain, wrapping it like a cobra.

He makes me feel as if I am right there, part of the story.

I find myself feeling mesmerized by the topics within the story-telling and am uncomfortable reading this book alone at home.(By now I'm convinced there's a genie hiding under my bed.)So instead, I carry this book in my purse, just reading it in the marketplace, the street cafe, and on along the bus-ride.

Occasionally I look up and assure myself:I'm surrounded by people, and it's 2009.

A top 5 favorite book
I love this book, I love this book, I love this book! Having read it twice from library copies, I finally bought a copy for my own and am reading it again. I love this book! Though it should be noted that the city ruled by Shahriyar is Samarra, as the Jinns were sitting on the dome of the mosque of the Tenth Imam. This book is a jewel of literature. It is a work of art.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature for a Reason
Unique, fresh, and inspiring.At times amusing, at times disturbing, but always thought-provoking, never allowing good and evil to really be defined.The reader never knows what to expect.Go read it!It's quality literature that should not be missed.

A brief introduction to Mahfouz style
Mahfouz has written much better books than this one.However,the title makes it be more attractive to the new reader. Good for a taste of his huge body of work.

A world of outward piety and latent corruption
Naguib Mahfouz's Arabian Nights and Days is a bitterly entertaining and compelling read. In medieval age, in some unknown Islamic town, genies pulled a series of escapades that created havoc. The clash between the genies and the townspeople was evocative of inveterate, age-old struggles of virtue, corruption, despotism, injustice, and other practices purged by conscience.

Seized by a pang of guilt that pricked his heart, Sultan Shahriyar repented of his atrocious massacre of virgins and other pious, god-fearing people. Shahrzad, daughter of vizier Dandan, sacrificed her happiness and remained with the sultan in order to stem the torrent of blood.

Merchant Sanaan al-Gamali had a nightmare in which a genie would otherwise punish him if he refused to kill the governor, who had brought about the genie through black magic and made the genie accomplish purposes not approved by conscience. In a state of delirium and crazed fantasies, Sanaan raped and murdered a girl. When Gamali finally summoned his courage, unsheathed the dagger, aimed at the governor's heart and stabbed with a strength drawn from determination and despair, the genie abandoned Gamali to his own fate.

Gamasa al-Bulti, the chief of police, was another man whom the genie chose to be the saving of the quarter from corruption. Gamasa was despondent at the ruin of Gamali's family, which now lived in ignominy. But the chief remained aloof to Gamali's widow for fear of ruining his own position and his standing with the sultan, who regarded the blow directed against his official as being aimed against him personally. The genie confronted Gamasa as one despicable person feeding off ignominy for he protected the elite (who was just as corrupted) by prosecuting the respectable people. In "repentance", Gamasa launched a lethal blow at the neck of the governor, who gave a horrified scream as his blood spurted like a fountain. Unlike the merchant, Gamasa was spared by the genie and was given a new identity Abdullah the porter who then continued the criminal killing spree.

The above tales are just a tasteful sampling of Mahfouz's tour-de-force as a raconteur. Arabian Nights and Days is made up of stories and adventures of 1001 Nights-like characters whose lives Mahfouz deftly and seamlessly woven together and converged at the Café of the Emirs. The café was the central hangout spot of town, where the elite met the ordinary, the rich mingled with the poor. It was where Sinbad parted with the town and returned with serendipitous treasures. It was where every father of a virgin daughter felt reassured relieved and rejoiced over the news of sultan's repentance. It was where the whisperings of people regarding Aladdin's innocence originated and eventually reached the sultan's ears.

The book does not manifest a plot; rather it drifts along and presents the etched characters and their tantalizing but bitter struggles. I have to employ some patience to scrupulously keep track of the exhaustive cast of characters and their intricate relationships (newly adopted identity, remarriage of widows, merry-go-round-like change/succession of governor and police chief). Underlying the thrilling tales are Mahfouz's persistent philosophical overtones and queries. What is the "true path" to salvation? To what extent is a person responsible for his wrongdoings? How does one gauge the extent of repentance, if one is persistently pricked by guilt? To what extent does conscience permit wrongdoings, if the wrongdoing is conducted for a good cause?

The Islamic town is somehow a satirical miniature of the incorrigible society, a world of outward piety and latent corruption. The acts and conduct of the characters bespeak man's weakness that betrays trust, treats generosity with disdain, and plunges recklessly into debauchery and criminal activities. From stealing, stupid pranks to murder; we see the pitiful fall of one of the most morally righteous man in the book. Does his conscience justify his actions?

I am not sure how much I am really absorbing the philosophical message Mahfouz brings about underlying the tale, other than to know I am reading a brilliant satire and a very richly-written novel. Arabian Nights and Days is a delightful departure from Mahfouz's formulaic melancholy works chronicling his times. 4.2 stars. ... Read more

Product Description
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed)

From Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz: the three magnificent novels—published in an omnibus edition for the first time—that form an ancient-Egyptian counterpart to his famous Cairo Trilogy.

Mahfouz reaches back thousands of years to bring us tales from his homeland's majestic early history—tales of the Egyptian nobility and of war, star-crossed love, and the divine rule of the pharoahs.In Khufu's Wisdom, the legendary Fourth Dynasty monarch faces the prospect of the end of his rule and the possibility that his daughter has fallen in love with the man prophesied to be his successor.Rhadopis of Nubia is the unforgettable story of the charismatic young Pharoah Merenra II and the ravishing courtesan Rhadopis, whose love affair makes them the envy of all Egyptian society.And Thebes at War tells the epic story of Egypt's victory over the Asiatic foreigners who dominated the country for two centuries.

Three Novels of Ancient Egypt gives us a dazzling tapestry of ancient Egypt and reminds us of the remarkable artistry of Naguib Mahfouz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Three impressive early works by Nobelist Mahfouz
Beautifully packaged by Everyman's Library, these three novellas from Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz are folk tales from the pharonic periods of Egypt.Included are "Khufu's Wisdom", a story that speaks to the futility of challenging fate, even if you are the most powerful man in the world;"Rhadopis of Nubia", the story of an all-consuming love affair that brings down a young pharoh; and "Thebes at War", that has the feel in story and language of "The Iliad" or other classical epics.

Author Mahfouz has purposely given his stories an extrarealist, even surrealist, feel.His interest is less in providing a totally accurate historic context but more in presenting interesting characters living in historic times.It's no accident that he portrays the powerful as especially vulnerable to destiny, passion and sins of pride and arrogance.The loftiest characters in these stories lose the most in terms of privilege and power.These books were written at a time when Egypt's modern rulers were seen as ineffectual, corrupt and personally inmmoral.

As mentioned, "Three Novels of Ancient Egypt" is beautifully bound and printed (complete with silk place holder).There is an interesting forward by novelist Nadine Gordimer in which she includes a favorite quote from literary critic Georg Lukacs."What matters i the historical novel is not the telling of great historical events, but the poet's awakening of people who figure in those events."Apt for these three novellas.Wonderful read.Recommended.

Misleading
Sorry to disagree with the majority of reviews and with the critical praise heaped on Mahfouz as a writer but I found these novels of "ancient Egypt" rather mundane and misleading. As historical novels, they fail to create a sense of place or atmosphere. The setting of the action in ancient Egypt is purely coincidental in that the stories might as well have been set in just about any period and with only slight adjustment of a few incidental details might as well been. Characterization is similarly weak in terms of drawing upon any historical features. Perhaps the translations are partially to blame, but even this does not explain or excuse what I regard as many glaring anachronisms in the novels. For example, early in the novel "Rhadopis of Nubia", a variation on the Cinderella story, Mahfouz describes a set of statues of the "kings of the Sixth Dynasty", a term that could not possibly have any conceptual meaning to the contemporaries of the story. If you are looking for historical fiction in the vein of a Renault, Stewart, or Cornwell, you will be mislead by these novels.

More Ancient Egypt
I purchased the book based on a review. I've just started to read and was a little put off at first. but it grabbed my interest as I progressed. I look forward to an enjoyable and informative read.

love Egypt
I love each and every one of these books.If you love realistic Egypt you will love these books.Very well written and you can almost imagine yourself there.

some lovely writing, but maybe not the author's best work
Apparently these are the first three of the author's novels.This is a beautiful edition and it is also cheaper than buying the three paperback novels separately.There is an introduction, a chronology of the author's life, and then the three novels.

The introduction is a missed opportunity.I think that I might have appreciated these novels better with the help of some information about the culture in which they were written.However the introduction offers little more than plot summary.I recommend skipping it.The chronology is nice, but not tied in with the introduction.

The first novel, Khufu's Wisdom, seems to be about fate and moral choices.It tells the story of a king whose efforts to defy his fate only help to make that fate happen.It is set during the construction of one of the pyramids, but there is not much in the way of historical detail (and I think there are also some historical inaccuracies).It reads more like a biblical fable than a historical novel.It is beautifully written, but the story is somewhat simple by modern American standards.

The second novel, Rhadopis of Nubia, is much better than the first.It tells of a disastrous love affair between a king and a beautiful courtesan.It is also beautifully written, in a lavish, sometimes over the top style.

The third novel, Thebes at War, did not grab my interest and I didn't finish it.Maybe I'll try again later.

The three novels have three different translators, but all of the translations read well and have a similar flavor.

If you have not read any of the author's work before, you might also consider starting with the Cairo trilogy. ... Read more

Product Description
Naguib Mahfouz's haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid pychological portrait of an anguished man with the suspense and rapid pace of a detective story.

Afterfour years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married to each other and are keeping his six-year-old daughter from him. But in the most bitter betrayal, his mentor, Rauf Ilwan, once a firebrand revolutionary who convinced Said that stealing from the rich in a unjust society is an act of justice, is now himself a rich man, a respected newspaper editor who wants nothing to do with the disgraced Said. As Said's wild attempts to achieve his idea of justice badly misfire, he becomes a hunted man so driven by hatred that he can only recognize too late his last chance at redemption. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

The Thief and the Dogs Reads Like a Bullet
Stories remind me of people. Something in their style calls to mind the mannerisms of family and friends. Self-important historical epics make me think of a lumbering middle-school teacher. The upper-crust comedies of P.G. Wodehouse take me back to a certain night out on the town with my little-black-dress-clad, then-future wife. Having just finished Naguib Mahfouz's The Thief and the Dogs, I find myself thinking of the Florida redneck who taught me to handle a gun, a man as hard and direct as the bullets he shot.

The years Said Mahran spent in an Egyptian jail did little to cure him of his affinity for burglary. Instead, they gave him a new vice -- revenge. Newly free, he wants the lives of his ex-wife and her lover, the two people who turned him over to the police. And when an overture to a former revolutionary friend turned nouveau riche falls flat, Said adds another name to his murderous list. He gets a gun from the owner of a less-than-reputable café and love from a faithful whore, but a fatal mistake quickly turns everyone else against him. A stray slug can take more than a life; it can kill a man's most-cherished plans.

Mahfouz's slim little novel is less interested in the niceties of vengeance than in examining the consequences of an ill-aimed life. Said soon moves beyond mere retribution and starts striking out at anyone and everyone who gets in his way. A gentle Sufi mystic chides him, yet Said is so wrapped up in bitterness that he can't grasp the ruin that envelops him. It doesn't matter how hot your rage burns when the whole world is nipping at your heels.

Solving the riddle
Newly released from prison, professional thief Said Mahran finds his previous life torn asunder. His wife, having spent all "the loot," has married a close friend; Said has been cut off from his daughter; his mentor, a journalist, has sold out to the temptations of a "plush office suite" and a "lovely villa" on the river. These acts of betrayal inspire Said to bitter thoughts and vindictive acts--and to the end, he remains the unredeemed casualty of his own crimes.

Given its plot, the crime-noir tone of Mahfouz's psychological novel isn't surprising; it is even strikingly reminiscent of Graham Greene's "Brighton Rock." Like Greene's wannabe criminal wunderkind Pinkie Brown, Said seeks both hesitant comfort from a familiar religious sanctuary and uneasy shelter in the arms of a woman, but he ultimately proves beyond the redemptive powers of religion or companionship. His sources of refuge--the courtyard of family spiritual mentor Sheikh, the tavern owned by the morally neutral Tarzan, the apartment of the prostitute Nur, Said's accomplice in petty crime--fail to shelter him from his self-created tragedy. Every act at salvaging his self-respect only uncovers another source of despair: "I, the murderer, understand nothing.... I've tried to solve part of riddle, but have only succeeded in unearthing an even greater one."

The style of the novel alternates between traditional crime narrative and a stream-of-conscious tour of Said's mind. It's masterfully done (and it's a notably easy read), but the techniques and themes will be familiar to readers of the genre in the Western tradition. The novelty here, as translator Trevor Le Gassick notes, is the "intimate and authentic impressions of the values and structures of Egyptian society of the period." Although it may not seem as weighty as some of Mahfouz's better-known masterpieces, "The Thief" still manages to be powerful in its concision.

Revenge is Bitter
First published in Egypt during the sixties, another great novella from Naguib Mahfouz, this one a riveting page turner narrated as a streaming flow of consciousness from a criminal mind.

The story opens with Said Mahran, just released after years in prison, burning up with hatred and obsessed with the idea of revenge on his ex-wife Nabawiyya and her new husband and his old friend Ilish.When he sees the success of one of his old cronies, Rauf Ilwan, he hates him too and desires vengeance. He seems driven by circumstance, yet later when he is given opportunities to change, he does not take them, knows only how to be a thief and nothing else. He is unable to change, blaming everyone except himself for his problems and soon seeks out "Tarzan" and his sleazy club out in the dark of the desert, drawn back into the criminal underworld.

A psychological study of someone bent on self-destruction.

Interesting Mixture
This novel, by one of the world's premier fiction writers (Nobel Prize, 1988), is an interesting combination of Western and Middle-Eastern traditions.The prose style is a mixture of Camus' "The Stranger", Hesse's "Siddartha", and Graham Greene's "A Burnt-Out Case".There is a hard-boiled aspect that reminds the reader of Graham Greene's best "entertainments" and a philosophical strand similar to the French existentialists.Mix in a little Sufist wisdom and Egyptian scenery, and you've got a rather interesting literary mixture.

I advise any fan of world literature to give it a try.It's short and fast-paced, so the time investment will only be a day or two.

The beginning of a New Direction
After "The Beginning and the End" Mahfouz presented his trilogy, one of the best novels of the 20th century Egypt. Then he started writing this strange novel. It is nothing like any of his old novels. It is, in fact, the beginning of a new direction in his writing.

There were many directions in Mahfouz's writing. He started first with short stories, then moved to historical novels, and then settled with usual romances. And here, in the beginning of this new direction, he starts writing pointless stories. I do not mean in the bad sence, what I really mean is a story beginning in a certain setting, with rich characters, but with the strangest ending. It might not be the worst of his writing but I just do not like open or not consistent endings. And by no means, does that mean that the novel is bad

I, as a matter of fact, liked it. I even enjoyed, it is the style that I could not comprehend completely. 3 stars with Mahfouz mean 5 stars with other. When I give it 3 stars I mean it was very good, but I cannot give it 5 stars because in this case I would say it was as good as "The Trilogy," which is not the case.

In this story we see a prisoner getting out of jail full of revenge ideas. His wife betrays him, his daughter no longer recognizes him, and he has only three refuges are: a corrupted friend of his who is working as a journalist, a religious old man his father used to visit frequently, and a wretched girl he used to know before his imprisonment.

Then Mahfouz continues developing this character, with all the feelings and mishaps.

The story was, I cannot emphasize enough, interesting and enlightening, yet not my type. You might want to give it a try, but I recommend "The Trilogy" for starters. ... Read more

Product Description
First published in Arabic in 1983, this brief but powerful parable is presented as the journal of a traveler known as Ibn Fattouma. A mystical, lyrical Pilgrim's Progress set in a mythical, timeless Middle East, by the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

Don't start here
I was excited when my book group picked this title, since I'd never read Mahfouz and was curious about this Noble-prize-winning writer, who many friends admire. But the Journey of Ibn Fattouma was a stunning disappointment: it's a collection of simple morality tales that seem to me, at best good for children or young adults. The writing has none of the artistry of a Borges or Calvino, which was my hope: it feelsflat-footed and plods aimlessly along from place to place, a bit like the protagonist of the fables. Indeed, for somebody interested in rich journeys to imaginary places, Calvino's Invisible Cities is a far, far better book, a masterpiece in comparison. If you haven't read Mahfouz before, I'd say this is the wrong place to start, at least based on my experience.

Not Mahfouz's Best
This book is nowhere near as rich as the Cairo Trilogy. It doesn't have the same level of depth of thought and is too short to give you that panoramic of Middle Eastern mentality that he does in the Trilogy.

That said its a quick read. It has a few interesting thoughts on man's search for the perfect way of life. It often seems like a scant political commentary, but Mahfouz's book doesn't have to be limited to politics. It goes beyond, somewhat reminiscent of Siddhartha to pursuing something very individual.

However, I wonder if the translation is really giving me the full picture. Compared to other translated works I've read by Mahfouz, this one seems overly simplified. Like reading a children's book at times.

Thought Provoking, Intellectual, and Insightful, but plot could be better
Mahfouz is a very talented writer. The literature is very rich and the devices he uses contribute to the fascination of the reader with the character of Ibn Fattouma. At times even, readers will become vicariously sullen or extatic because of the skillful characterization. The concepts in this book about post-modern religion and the role of an intellectual are great fodder for discussion and will keep people who love to think engaged for a while, but the plot is not as strong as the writing or interpretative aspects. The debacles that Fattouma faces on his journey are not very engaging always and at times deviate from realism (deviation from conceptual implications). When reading the book, I imagine that most people will be waiting anxiously for the next glimpse into Fattouma's psychology and analysis of the world around him and few will pay attention to the actual plot and sideplots.

Fattouma's Travels
After reading three previous book by Naguib Mahfouz, I figured I hadn't read anything impressive so why read any more.However, I came across a couple of his books at a library sale so I picked them up cheap.I must admit, I found "The Journey of Ibn Fattouma" an enjoyable and interesting book.It was a bit simplistic (all of the four books I've read by Mahfouz qualify as novellas).In it, we follow the title character as he searches for the land of perfection.Along the way, he visits 5 different States each unique in one or more aspects.Ibn Fattouma discovers that each unique aspect of each State has its' appeal but is ultimately a destructive trait that challenges his Islamic faith.

I won't go into details since the book is easily read and understood.However, I will say that I appreciated how his brief observations and experiences gave a clear and impressive understanding of the world through the eyes of a Muslim.At least, not being a Muslim, that's what I felt.The ending at first had me confused until I grasped that Ibn Fattouma had already found what he needed to know about his paradise by realizing what it wasn't.

A lesson in humanity
Ibn Fattouma, or Quindil as his father called him, is about to depart for the quest of the land of Gebel, a place considered by many to be a miracle of countries, perfection itself, because the world seems to him loathsomely jaundiced and not to be born or lived in.
Quindil's long journey to Gebel will take him to different countries: the land of Mashriq, land of Haira, land of Halba, land of Aman and land of Ghuroub. Each of these countries shows social and political institutions similar to the ones we know, be it a kingdom, a democracy or a totalitarian regime and with much humour Mr Mahfouz depicts in a fairytale like prose the absurdities of each system.
The last chapter is called The Beginning because after visiting five lands, Gebel finally comes into view far in the distance on top of the Green Mountain and Quindil is about to ascend its winding path. ... Read more

Product Description
In Naguib Mahfouz's suspenseful novel a bitter and ambitious nihilist, a beautiful and impoverished student, and a corrupt official engage in a doomed ménage à trois.


Cairo of the 1930s is a place of vast social and economic inequities. It is also a time of change, when the universities have just opened to women and heady new philosophies imported from Europe are stirring up debates among the young. Mahgub is a fiercely proud student who is determined to keep both his poverty and his lack of principles secret from his idealistic friends. When he finds that there are no jobs for those without connections, out of desperation he agrees to participate in an elaborate deception. But what begins as a mere strategy for survival soon becomes much more for both Mahgub and his partner in crime, an equally desperate young woman named Ihsan. As they make their way through Cairo's lavish high society their precarious charade begins to unravel and the terrible price of Mahgub's Faustian bargain becomes clear.

 

Translated by William M. Hutchins ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

"No wound hurts a dead man,,," (half a line of poetry by al-Mutanabbi)
This 1945 masterfully executed novel was one of the first from Nobel-prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. A sharp observer of Egyptian society and human behavior, Mahfouz presents a cinematic opening onto the lives of four Egyptianuniversity students in the early 1930s. Each one represents a different segment of Egyptian society. One is a devout follower of Islam and is guided by its principles, another is a romantic and an atheist and progressive socialist, a third is simply a journalist objectively reporting on what he sees, and the fourth, Mahgub, is a self-doubting but distinctly cynical and nihilistic person out to survive and overcome his poverty in a corrupt and cruel nation. Mahfouz makes this student's story the main focus of the novel. In the course of telling this tale, the author presents the huge class differences in Egyptian society as well as its basic corruption and the yearning of its people for change. Nihilism is born of despair, poverty, and perhaps jealousy, and all three of these forces drive Mahgub to choose as his mentor and life guide a cocky government official who has mastered the art of manipulation for his own ends. The sad plight of women is also embodied in the choices made by the beautiful student Ihsan Shihata. Although she is initially seen as choosing to honor her feelings of love for one of the students, her life becomes upended and completely compromised as her family and parents want her only to find a rich man in order to guarantee their economic survival. Ihsan and Mahgub are two of a kind and their story is simply yet brilliantly and dramatically told.

After you read this book, you will understand why Mahfouz was a world-class author. This story still holds up today, even though some references have become dated. The tortured reflections and desperate choices made by Mahfouz's richly portrayed characters are reminiscent of Dosteyevsky ("A Nasty Story" comes to mind). Mahfouz understood people well. This book is well worth reading. Highly recommended.

Cairo Modern
Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz wrote //Cairo Modern// at the start of his career more than sixty years ago, yet the novel shines with the humor and atmospherics for which he is deservedly famous.Mahgub is a university student from an impoverished family who takes pride in his Dostoevskian amorality.Faced with starvation poverty, he accepts a Faustian bargain; in exchange for a coveted government position, he will marry the mistress of a married high official, sight unseen.Imagine his shock when at his wedding, he learn that his bride is none other than Ishan, the former love of one his best friends.Believing himself beyond conventional morality, he proceeds with the marriage all the same.What follows is part farce, part drama, part social commentary, and thoroughly entertaining.

As with all Mahfouz's works, the city of Cairo is practically a character in this novel; here he preserves the city in the turbulent 1930s.At times, the dialogue is stilted and overly formal, though this probably owes much to an overly literal translation from Mahfouz's classical Arabic.Nonetheless, this fine work offers a window into the early writings of one of the 20th century's greatest novelists.

Reviewed by Jordan Magill

"Don't waste money applying for a job.The question boils down to this:Are you related to someone in a position of power?"
Set in the 1930s and published in 1945, Cairo Modern is, by turns, ironic, satirical, farcical, and, ultimately, cynical, as the author creates a morality tale in which life's most basic guiding principles are still undetermined.World War II has kept the British in England as a foreign power, a weak Egyptian monarchy is under siege by reformers, and the army is growing.The plight of the poor is an urgent national problem.As the novel opens, four college students, all due to graduate that year, are arguing moral principles, one planning to live his life according to "the principles that God Almighty has decreed," while others argue in favor of science as the new religion, materialism, social liberation, and even love as guiding principles.None of the students have any respect for their government, which they see as "rich folks and major families."

Among the students, Mahgub Abd al-Da'im is the poorest, and he must literally starve himself in order to finish the school year, becoming more and emaciated as time passes. Finding a job upon graduation is a matter of his whole family's survival.When Mahgub contacts a former neighbor, Salim Al-Ikhshidi, for help, Al-Ikhshidi, in consultation with governmental higher-ups, presents aplan for Mahgub, who is in no position to be selective.If Mahgub will agree to marry the lover of a high-ranked government official and become part of a ménage a trois, all his expenses will be paid and a job will be guaranteed in the ministry where Al-Ikhshidi himself works.Desperate, Mahgub agrees, intending to "find satisfaction in a marriage that was a means, rather than an end."On his wedding day, he meets the bride--the former girlfriend of one of his closest friends, a girl his friend still loves.

Mahgub's marriage is filled with the expected complications as he tries to hide his poverty-stricken past and his betrayal of his college friend, at the same time that he is rising in the government, associating with wealthy and influential friends, and becoming arrogant, all sources of satire by Mahfouz.Mahgub and his wife become a perfect couple--"Each of us has sold himself in exchange for status and money."When the carefully created charade begins to unravel, the final scenes are worthy of the grandest of farces.

Ultimately, the Egyptian setting becomes less important than the universal themes and attitudes which the author is illustrating--the naivete of college students, the lure of wealth, the arrogance of power, the pretentions of the newly affluent, the willingness to sacrifice principle for expediency, and, ultimately, the ability of "the clique of most powerful criminals to destroy the weaker ones."As Mahgub's former friends gather to discuss the latest governmental scandal at the end of the novel, they hark back to their arguments at the novel's opening, wondering about the role of religion, the definition of evil, the mores of their society, and all the interactions among these.Life is busy for these young men, but tomorrow is another day.Mary Whipple

Cynicism, audacity and ambition without limits
In this novel dominated by a selfish and vicious character, Naguib Mahfouz paints a blackish portrait of his home country, Egypt. The country is undermined by the cancer of poverty (the chasm between the haves and the have-nots), of corruption (the completely biased nomination process of civil servants, bid rigging, fraudulent elections) and of nepotism (the crucial questions are: do you have someone to pull the strings to get you this job? Can you ask the hand of the daughter of a powerful civil servant?)

His world vision is also pessimistic: only money is important and protects a powerful cartel of corrupted people in high places.
For him, religion is only a tiny varnish: a small minority of believers is exploiting the sufferings of many millions of fellow believers.

In this story of the merciless struggle for survival by a destitute, but cynical and opportunistic, student Naguib Mahfouz depicts frankly the violent personal and familial confrontations and the biting and obscene schemings of those in power. He also has no fear to revile bluntly social institutions, like marriage or the civil bureaucracy.
This book is a must read for all lovers of world literature.

In the end, you are exactly--what you are
Put on a wig with a million curls,
put the highest heeled boots on your feet,
yet you remain in the end just what you are.

Goethe, Faust.

"Cairo Modern", written in 1945, is one of the great Naguib Mahfouz's earlier works.It is set in Cairo in the 1930s, a turbulent time when the old, decaying monarchical order and British dominance of Egypt entered its last stages.The social order was changing and burgeoning Egyptian nationalists, political radicals and religious zealots rubbed elbows with each other in a society on the edge of a radical transformation.Mahfouz took a snapshot of that society and the result is a book that seemed as entertaining as it was informative.

As noted accurately in the Product Description, the book unfolds like the beginning of a movie. It begins with a long-range view of the King Fuad University. It is evening and the sun shines off the golden dome of the main building. Slowly we zoom into the campus as student leave at the end of the day. It then zooms to a group of friends who, we soon discover in the next few brief chapters, represent a cross-section of modern Cairo (at least that section able to attend university.)The story eventually turns its focus upon Mahgub Abd al-Da'im. Mahgub is hungry in every sense of the word. He is hungry for success or at least the trappings of success and as his family's modest economic means are destroyed by an illness in the family he also finds himself hungering for a decent meal.He also hungers for a beautiful girl, Ihsan, who barely knows he exists.He settles instead for renting affection from a girl on the streets.Ihsan is a modern girl, with modern aspirations. She is also an admirer of western art and literature, including Goethe. This reference is not accidental as Ihsan and Mahgub are asked to enter into a Faustian bargain that on its face seems to provide them with what they each feel they most need. The rest of the novel deals with the consequences of their bargain.

"Cairo Modern" was a wonderful book.As with Mahfouz's most famous work, The Cairo Trilogy Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy), Palace of Desire (Cairo Trilogy II), and Sugar Street (The Cairo Trilogy, 3), I found myself swept into the streets of Cairo and felt as if I had a real sense of the place and people Mahfouz wrote about. I could feel the aspirations of the primary characters and had a real sense of the changing world that they lived in.I've read most of Mahfouz's work and, even if it is smaller in scope than Cairo Trilogy or Children of the Alley, it is still a brilliant vignette of Cairo during a tumultuous moment in time.It is well worth reading.L. Fleisig
... Read more

Product Description
A collection of the short stories of the Nobel Prize-winning author of Palace Walk represents thirty years of work and features tales of the citizens of Cairo, who struggle to survive amid the city's poverty. Reprint. PW. K. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The many faces of old Cairo
Egypt's Naguib Mahfouz was the great chronicler of Cairo's dark alleyways and murky souls.Born in 1911, he was educated in philosophy at the University of Cairo and spent most of his life as a civil servant .While he seldom travelled abroad, he was strongly inlfuenced by the likes of men like Proust, Balzac, Dickens, and Camus.He won the Nobel Prize in 1988.

"The Time and the Place and Other Stories" is a great place to begin if you've never read anything by Mahfouz and a welcome slice of his short fiction if you're only familiar with his novels.One is struck by the variety of the stories collected here.Written between 1962 and 1989, they incapsulate Mahfouz's concern with everything from political injustice to the downfall of families to loneliness and death and the anguished world-weariness that merges gradually, in many characters, into mysticism.

The Borgesean "The Man and the Other Man" (even the title is Borgesean) is a dark political allegory about a murderer stalking his victim;at the end, though, he finds himself woven into a labyrinthine nightmare of his own creation.In contrast to this tale's surrealism, "The Answer is No" is a realistic, outspokenly "feminist" tale about a resolute young woman who scorns the advances of an old tutor of hers and seeks to avoid love in order to devote her life to teaching, "persuading herself that happiness is not confined to love and motherhood.Never has she regretted her firm decision."Side by side with these are stories like the title-piece, a semi-fantastic tale about a man who digs up an ancient parchment in his garden which leads him, in a bizarre (but, in retrospect, hilarious) ending, into trouble with the law, and "The Empty Café", about an old teacher "cursed by a long life" who has seen all his friends and now his wife die and is left, at last, alone, shipwrecked at the end of his days in an age that is not his.Alongside these are the folktale-ish "The Conjurer Made Off With the Dish" and the mystical "Zaabalawi", Mahfouz's most famous story, about a man hunting for an elusive healer-sheikh.

I thought a few of the stories were a flop (for instance, "The Tavern of the Black Cat", in which a man walks into a café and, for no reason I could catch, refuses to let anyone leave;the jumbled up ending left me with the impression that Mahfouz just couldn't pull it off.)Otherwise, there's no reason why this book should be out of print.It's worth finding.5 stars. ... Read more

Product Description
Love—who can count its varieties, measure its force, uncover the masks it wears, or predict how it binds and divides? In this spare novel, master storyteller Naguib Mahfouz gives us some of his most memorable characters, widely familiar to Egyptians from the film version of the book: Sitt Ain, with her large house, her garden, her cats, and her familiar umbrella, strong and active, mother of the neighborhood; her son Izzat, so different from her, emotional and unsure of his way; and the friends of his childhood, Sayyida, Hamdoun, and Badriya, all their lives entangled and shaped over many years by the encounter of commitment, ambition, treachery, and above all love. This is a story in and of twentieth-century Egypt, which can be read on more than one level. The neighborhood and the motifs may be familiar, but they combine to tell a new and intriguing tale, with an unexpected outcome. ... Read more

Product Description
Mirrors is one of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz's more unusual works. First published in serialized form in the Egyptian television magazine, it consists of a series of vignettes of characters from a writer's life -- a writer very like Mahfouz himself. And accompanying each vignette is a portrait of the character by a friend of the author, the renowned Alexandrian artist Seif Wanli.

Through each vignette -- whether of a lifelong friend, a sometime adversary, or a childhood sweetheart -- not only is that one character described but much light is thrown on other characters already familiar or yet to be encountered, as well as on the narrator himself, who we come to know well through the mirrors of his world of acquaintances.

At the same time, Mirrors also reflects the recent history of Egypt, its political movements, its leaders, its wars, and its peace, all of which affect the lives of friends and enemies and of the narrator himself. As the translator writes in his introduction, "the narrator's acquaintances from childhood, schooldays, and civil service career take him from the lofty heights of intellectual salons to the seamy squalor of brothels and drug dens; from the dreams of youth and nationalistic ideals to the sobering realities of post-revolutionary society and clashing economic and political values."

The apparently simple but penetrating portraits by Seif Wanli add an extra, distinctive dimension to this already intriguing book. They originally appeared with the serialized texts in the television magazine, but were omitted when the book was first published in 1972, and were also omitted when the English translation first appeared in 1977. Now, in this special edition, the pictures and the complete text appear together for the first time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Haphazardly Concise & The Concisely Haphazard
Here is a work with the omniscience of genius, but none of the arrogance. A great writer's puppet show, with invisible strings.Naguib Mahfouz, who is undeniably a great writer, has written a novel that feels like a documentary so rich and detailed, it could never be documented by a person without having his/her personality color the facts to suit their particular agenda. So Mahfouz's Mirrors is a sprawling story told by an anonymous narrator who never bothers to introduce himself and never volunteers his religious or political beliefs. It is not told in chronological chapters, but seemingly random accounts of characters the narrator has met in his lifetime. At first glance, Mahfouz seems to have accomplished what is physically impossible; a mosaic of parallel lines. But what I think is the ultimate message of Mirrors is that, within a given society, no life ever progresses in parallel to the next. But its not that simple.

The first character, Dr.Ibrahim Aqul casts a long shadow over the others. As a post graduate student he had submitted a thesis that was perceived to be anti-Religion, and was attacked by the country's right wing as an atheist. Rather then stand up to public outrage and defend his beliefs, he recoils and denies the accusations. The narrator's first encounter with him was as his Literature student in the 1930s where Dr.Aqul, who had survived the controversy and taken a comfortable job, was the most despised member of the university's faculty. The hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, who understood and/or questioned the government and religion, yet conformed for the sake of their financial security, would seem to be Mahfouz's target here. But Dr.Aqul reappears as a supporting player in the lives of other people, the reader's impression of him changes as other characters weigh in with their opinion of him. Maybe the message here, is that one person's impression of a man could never encompass who that man really was. There are many ways to interpret a man's actions, more still to guess his motives. But I'm afraid it was never going to be that simple.

The narrator never marries, but he does share two heartwarming tales of childish love of neighborhood girls he had never met face to face, and two heartbreaking, sordid affairs he had with two emotionally scarred and married women. His romantic idealism as a youngster mirrored that of a nation that fought tooth and nail against British colonialism. His loveless affairs and his surrender of idealism mirrored a broken nation, whose new rulers, the revolutionary forces that overthrew the corrupt monarchy and forced the British out, followed the example of Pigs in Orwell's Animal Farm and became more autocratic, brutal and unforgiving then their predecessors ever were.

Another buried theme in Mirrors is the emancipation of Egyptian women in the face of an often restrictive culture. There is the Madam who controlled many of old Cairo's bordellos, the illiterate housewife who accepts an acting job, the student who turned heads in a 1930s Egyptian university with her provocative clothes and her strong will and many many more. Yet Mirrors could never be pinned down to just that. The narrator is so subjective, so non-judgmental that he often appears bland, and therefore trustworthy.

The structure of Mirrors has a message all its own. As the narrator chooses to summarise his entire experience with a character in just a few pages, we are introduced to a character only to learn of their ultimate fate a few fleeting moments later. Because Time in its "Heaviness, majesty, betrayal, perpetuity and its effect" is mindlessly unjust. Its treats the good and the bad with equal disdain. From those, often shattering, short accounts of a life, there are stark images that once imagined will stay with a reader for a long time. There is the clueless and shocked eight year old narrator standing outside an Alexanderian bordello between to chattering whores, there is the love struck schoolboy who steels a gun and shoots the object of his desire once she rejects him and the beautiful girl standing at the window while an awe struck narrator watches from the street. What finally emerges from the Mirror is a kaleidoscope of sixty years of Egyptian history. It is a country that has often found itself out of the frying pan and into the fire. One that often retains a certain mystery even to people who have lived there their entire lives.

The last character in Mirrors is completely unrelated to all the others, the account, or in this case the memory of her is only two pages long. But its so perfect, so symbolic that it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

She's a girl from the narrator's childhood. As a seven-year-old, he would watch her from his window, and this sixteen-year-old girl would jokingly smile back at him. Everytime he tried to get to her house, the maid would catch him and would carry him kicking and screaming back to his house. So one day, when it had rained so heavily that their alleyway was completely flooded. In the pouring rain, he gets into his mother's plastic laundry box, rows past the made with a broomstick and runs upstairs to meet the ethereal beauty that had so moved him. Dripping wet he enters her room. She ruffles his hair, takes his hand and says:"I will read your fortune". And as she held his hand and revealed his destiny, the narrator remembers: "She followed the lines of my hand and read my future, but I had used up all my consciousness staring at her beautiful face". Mirrors is a masterwork. It's as simple as that.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS EVER WRITTEN!
I don't wont to be qualified as an "extremist fan" of Mahfouz,but I repeat myself: this is one of the most interesting and human book Iever read. The style chosen by Mahfouz is absolutely fascinating: a seriesof most appealing or repulsing people - both men and women - pass beforeour very eyes led by the voice of an anonimous character. Of course, onefirstly suppose that the latter is none other than Mahfouz himself and thatthe other people are actual persons whom he met along his life, since thenarrative is presented as flowing evocative occurrences, some having a sortof continuation along the play, others not. Some critics have denied thatthis work should be defined as a"novel", but an attentivereading and evaluation certainly dispels such a pretension. It is not onlya"novel", but an extraordinary one, through which one can getcloser to the mind, ways and heart of the Egyptian modern people. TheArabic original was published in 1972 and this was Mahfouz's first workafter the "disaster" of 1967. Therefore, even the title isevocative of the psychological conditions of the Egyptian society at thetime: like a mirror reflecting a succession of images, as a lot offragments after a shock. The life of all those around the teller is simplysketched out, but one becomes familiar with each one of them, perhapsbecause, as it is usual in Mahfouz, he has touched upon the chords of thehuman heart. ... Read more