Product Description
In this second collection of his writing based on his own dreams serialized in a Cairo magazine before his death in 2006 at the age of 94, Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz again displays his matchless ability to tell epic stories in uncannily terse form. As in the first volume (The Dreams, AUC Press, 2004), we meet more of the real (and unreal) figures that filled the author's life with glory and worry, ecstasy and ennui, in tales dreamed by a mind too fertile to ever truly rest. In them, a man sent by a victorious invader to open a storehouse holding the statue of Egypt's reawakening finds his access denied by a menacing reptile. An obscure writer dies, and a despairing inscription on his coffin turns his funeral into a massive demonstration, assuring the deceased of a deathless reputation. A man opens a stubborn gate at the end of a lengthy chore, staring at a lake over which loom the illuminated faces of those he has loved, but who are no more--in search of the soul who made him long to live forever. The ever more condensed and poetic episodes in Dreams of Departure movingly carry on Mahfouz's only major work after a knife attack in 1994 ironically inspired him to dream in print for his readers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Over two hundred dreams are presented
Written by Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, and skillfully translated into English by biographer Raymond Stock, Dreams of Departure: The Last Dreams Published in the Nobel Laureate's Lifetime is the second collection Mahfouz's writings drawn from his own dreams, as serialized in a Cairo magazine in the time shortly before his death. Over two hundred dreams are presented; each one is brief, rarely more than a few paragraphs. An afterword by the translator rounds out this beautiful, prideful, and memorable collection. "Dream 118: I was in Ramle Station, always bustling with people, when at one end I caught sight of the man whose slogans the masses love to repeat, wooing a stunning woman. 'If you're doing something scandalous,' I whispered in his ear, 'then you should be discreet.' But he answered me bluntly, 'Is there anything more discreet than this?'" Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
In one of his regular columns in Al-Ahram Weekly, Naguib Mahfouz at the age of 89 wrote of his feeling of having reached the penultimate station of his life, and noted how it reminded him of his annual journey from Cairo to Alexandria: at Sidi Gaber Station he begins to prepare his luggage, ready to get off the train, because the next station is the final one.
This celebratory volume, published on the occasion of the Nobel laureate's 90th birthday, brings together a selection of the more personal, reflective pieces that have appeared over the past seven years. They reveal a writer concerned as always with the human condition, with his own thought processes, and with the craft of writing, offering rare insights into the way a great writer thinks and works. The range and quality of writing is even more remarkable when one remembers that since a nearly fatal knife attack in 1994, the injuries Mahfouz sustained, combined with his failing eyesight, have made it almost impossible for him to write. But as a man who has devoted his life to the written word, Mahfouz now prepares his weekly articles through conversations with his friend Mohamed Salmawy, who has selected and gathered the pieces in this collection. Mahfouz fans and anyone interested in learning more about the life, times, and thoughts of one of the major figures of modern Arabic literature will find this volume an essential addition to their bookshelf. ... Read more

Product Description
Winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz is considered the most important Arabic fiction writer of this century. Naguib Mahfouz is a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the writer and his accomplishments. Rasheed El-Enany presents a systematic evaluation of the author's life and environment, local and foreign influences on him, elements of his thought and technique, and the evolution of his craft. While discussing each work individually, the book emphasizes the thematic and aesthetic elements of continuity in Mahfouz's work. It also examines Mahfouz's struggle to free his novels from prevalent, predominantly Western molds and to express his own socio-political thought within the Arabic inheritance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Simply a great book
If you're a big fan of Naguib Mahfouz like myself, and if you really want to understand the idea behind the plots and symbols in Naguib Mahfouz's novels, then you will definitely like this book.

The book is like a reference for all of the works Naguib Mahfouz have done till sometime in the 1990's.

Best thing about this book is that it categorizes the novels according to the meaning the author is conveying. It first starts with introduction about the life of Naguib Mahfouz, then goes into different categories. I found the reviews of the "Harafeesh", "the thief and the dogs", "Journeys of Ibn Fattuma", "Children of Gebelawi", "respected sir", and all the rest marvelous! In description of books like "the Beggar", it gives great explanation of what every character in the novel represent.

I highly recommend this book to anybody who is reading the works of Naguib Mahfouz! ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on March 22, 1994. The length of the article is 526 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning.(Brief Article)
Author: Ramzi M. Salti
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1994
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: v68Issue: n2Page: p419(2)

Article Type: Book Review, Brief Article

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
Naguib Mahfouz, the Arab world's celebrated Nobel laureate for literature, died in Cairo on 30 August 2006. He was 94 years old and had been in frail health since an assassination attempt in 1994, which left him almost unable to write. Naguib Mahfouz was born on December 11, 1911, in the old Gamaliya quarter of Cairo, where he spent his first nine or ten years and which plays an important role in his earlier, realistic novels such as "Midaq Alley" and "The Cairo Trilogy", and figures symbolically and in terms of characters and physical images in later books like "Children of the Alley" and "The Harafish". The alley of his childhood is a kind of microcosm of Egyptian society in his works. "Children of the Alley" was deemed an allegory on the lives of the prophets including the Prophet Mohammed, which led to a fatwah being pronounced and in 1994 a religious zealot tried to stab him to death. ... Read more

Product Description
Generally regarded as modern Egypt's leading literary figure, Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arabic-language author awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Critics hail Mahfouz for his ability to capture the essence of Cairene culture and life. This book illuminates how Naguib Mahfouz has successfully used the elements of daily life to capture the reality of his generation amidst the political upheaval caused in part by the British occupation of Egypt. This study also goes beyond opening up the Egyptian world to the reader; it is a careful analysis of the major novels of Mahfouz's career from an ambiguous feminist perspective. The author selects the term ambiguous deliberately to signify the disparity between a Western and Islamic lens. By employing this approach, the author successfully shows how the characters are not only entrapped in cages of subservience, but also cleverly reveals how the reader of Mahfouz's work is often entrapped in cages of misunderstanding. As the first scholarly study on Mahfouz's work through a highly original interdisciplinary Western and Eastern feminist lens, this book is a critical addition for collections in Literature, Middle Eastern Studies, and Women's Studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

In-depth analysis of Mahfouz
This study of Mahfouz's major works of fiction is intense, revealing Allegretto-Diiulio's passion for tapping into this Nobel prize winner's soul. She unravels Mahfouz's female characters in such a way that scholars and students alike will emerge with a sense of 20th century Cairo and its detemination to survive the age-old debate on feminism. Here, Allegretto-Diiulio reveals the different attitudes between standard feminist theories and the Islamic take on feminism.She focuses primarily on Midaq Alley and Mahfouz's famous Cairo Trilogy as the basis for her analysis on sexual entrapment, domestic and spiritual entrapment. An excellent and refreshing read! ... Read more

Product Description
A stunning novel by the widest-read Arab writer currently published in the U.S. The age of Nasser has ushered in enormous social change, and most of the middle-aged and middle-class sons and daughters of the old bourgeoisie find themselves trying to recreate the cozy, enchanted world they so dearly miss. One night, however, art and reality collide--with unforeseen circumstances. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Of Interest, but Far from His Best Work
The work of Mahfouz can be divided, it's said, into four periods: historical, realist, experimental and traditional. For many, his great accomplishment was the Cairo Trilogy, from the realist period. This novel, which I assume belongs to the experimental phase, failed to fascinate by comparison.

It had some interest: to present the characters' frivolity and dissipation and finally to confront them with the consequences of their actions. Yet I couldn't help comparing this novel with his earlier, realistic work, with its deeper characters and relationships and more entrancing stories. Here, on the other hand, all the characters were weak, and little attention was given to their development. Maybe their weakness was the point, since the author seemed to be portraying the loss of direction of the Egyptian elites, but it didn't make for an absorbing read.

Maybe part of the problem, aside from the theme, was that the author seemed unable to make up his mind about which point of view to tell the story from. Much of it was from the character Zaki's perspective -- in the third person -- though the novel didn't go that deeply into his character. Other times, it followed other characters, superficially.

This story has been filmed, and it made a livelier film than a novel, in my opinion.

Some excerpts:

"Everyone is writing about socialism . . . while most writers dream of acquiring a fortune, and of nights full of dazzling society."

"We can see that the ship of state sails on without need of our opinion or support; and that any further thinking on our part is worth nothing, and would very likely bring distress and high blood pressure in its wake."

"Real knowledge provides an ethical system in an age when morals are crumbling. It is manifested in a love of truth; in integrity in judgment; in a monastic devotion to work; in cooperation in research; and in a spontaneous disposition toward an all-embracing, humanist attitude. Is it possible, on the level of the particular, for scientific excellence to replace opportunism in the hearts of the new generation?"

"Like many whom I meet at social gatherings, he is apparently exquisitely cultured but inwardly hollow, crumbling, stinking of his own miserable decay . . . . [Another] imagines herself to be a pioneering martyr, whereas in fact she is a pioneer only in the incoherent depravity of addiction."

"He had not read a newspaper for a long time; he knew nothing of current events except what he picked up from his friends' delirious commentaries that merged into the endless babble of the smoking party. Who were the ministers? What were the policies? How were things going? But who cares! As long as you can walk along a deserted street without a thug attacking you, as long as Amm Abduh brings you the good stuff every evening, as long as there is plenty of milk in the refrigerator, then things must be going well."

An Egyptian 'Betrayal of the scholars'.
Intellectuals gather every evening on a boat for drug and sex parties. One of them writes a play with the members of the group as main characters. Their common attitude: flight for reality, nihilism and defeatism. The fervour after the Nasser revolution is gone: "Revolutions are planned by cunning foxes, fought by the brave and won by the cowards."
But ultimately they are confronted with reality when one of them kills a person in a car accident and flees. Will the name of the culprit be revealed to the police? The group falls apart.

Mahfouz punches Samuel Beckett and his 'theatre of the absurd' K.O. when he cleverly remarks that Beckett filed a complaint against an editor who failed to fulfil his contract. His plays may be absurd, but not the royalties. It was all just a pose.

Indeed, more a book for Egyptian readers, but also with a universal theme: don't shun your responsibilities.

Highly recommended.

Mahfouz charms the Nile!
Winning the Nobel Prize for literature (in 1988) certainly didn't hurt him any, and
now Naguib Mahfouz has become a house-hold name (for the literati, at least). When
one reads a Prize-winner, one expects substance and style, and Mahfouz, if his
translators are honest, certainly seems worthy of the Swedish honor. In "Adrift on the
Nile," nihilism is the word, as a group of like minded intellectuals gather nightly on a
houseboat moored on the famous river where they question anything that can be
questioned--"but no answers," they claim. "There are never any answers," as they call
into account any topic brought up. It is a "din in iniquity," for sure, as good Egyptian
kif (and a well-stoked pipe) help to bring out their curiousity cum intellect. That is,
until, toward the end of this short novel, the group takes a ride out into the desert
where a disaster happens. It's Jay Gatsby, final chapter, of course.
Mahfouz is compared to Proust, Camus, Salinger, and an introspective Hemingway,
and justifiably so. Hailed as the "widest-read Arab writer currently published in the
U.S.," Mahfouz has certainly wielded his own influence among international readers
since the '88 Prize; alas, it seems it took the impact of this award for his books to
achieve their circulation, but that doesn't diminish his themes, his philosophies, his
impact on both socially significant issues and modern literature.
"Adrift on the Nile" reads fast and it is short; yet it packs a punch that seems to score
to the very soul. The houseboat literally becomes a ship of fools, adrift on the
Sargasso Sea, headed into the Bermuda triangle. Existentialists will love this one.
(Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

Prize-winning?
This is the third book that I've read by Mahfouz.I believe it will be the last.I started reading him because he is, after all, a Nobel Prize-winning author.I couldn't figure out why after reading "Respected Sir" or "The Search" and I'm still not sure after "Adrift on the Nile".However, this last book was the best of the three and you might want to read it and judge for yourself.It's short and won't take long to read.I found it surprizing to read about such a decadent group of individuals partaking of their illegal substances in the middle of Cairo.The basic plot, as I understood it, has to do with examining the reactions of artistic intelligentia with cold hard reality.How do people who search for "Truth" handle the truth?We'll at least he didn't drag it out. I'm not sure why Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize but I'm through trying to find out.

Adrift on the Nile
A sort of Eqyptian Bartelby the Scrivener meets Brian de Palma. The book portrays a group of overeducated and generally understimulated, underemployed professionals who meet nightly in a hookah ritual that seems to roll on like the everpresent Nile until the one night when an outing changes things forever.The book marvelously conveys modern aimlessness, ennui, and the haunting presence of the past.Short, but depressing. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1988 Naguib Mahfouz became the first Arab writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. While Mahfouz is first and foremost a storyteller, he gives the reader an extra "baksheesh" by telling stories of persons from all walks of life. By doing so, Mahfouz accurately depicts the existential problems facing contemporary Egyptians. Gordon questioned Mahfouz directly in a series of personal interviews conducted over the past ten years, probing the existential themes in the characters, plots, and issues raised in Mahfouz's stories. The result is an intimate and highly personal look at life in Egypt. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An excellent look at egyptian society through Najib Mahfouz
This book gave excellent insight into both Mahfouzs' writing style as well as Egyptian culture in many of its peculiarities.Though at occasionally the author takes some conclusions to extreme ends, the book rings true for arab culture and islamic culture in egypt as it is portrayed through Mahfouz's writings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A collector's item.
I would not normally review my own translation, but I have to correct the impression given in the review by A Customer: the novel is set on the edge of Cairo, not in India, and it reflects on the three Western monotheistic religions and not at all on those of India, China, etcetera.The first four heroes relive the lives of Adam, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad respectively, and the fifth hero represents modern science and technology.I give it only 4 stars, because the translation needed to be revised - and was, as Children of Gebelaawi.However, it is a collector's item as only 6,000 copies were published by Henemann Educational Books and 2,000 by Three Continents Press.

Children of Gebelawi
The Children of Gebelawi is a must read for anyone who dares to look at religion beyond traditional interpretations.Maohfauouz takes all of the major world religions and retells the stories of the prophets in a modernday context set in India.The retelling of the prophets allows one toexamine the actual stories of the religions in a way that encouragescritique and in some cases acceptance.It is a fabulous read - especiallyfor those who enjoy challenging and clarifying their own beliefs. ... Read more

Product Description
Naguib Mahfouz, famed for his uncanny power to depict the real world, is equally ingenious at capturing the surreal, the otherworldly, and the supernatural. The ghostly side of Mahfouz’s fiction, though less well known than his other works, nonetheless remains a haunting presence. This collection of stories sifted from his later writings brings these restless spirits out of the Mahfouzian shadows together for the first time in English: A murdered man finds himself in the first level of what he mistakes for Paradise - where he faces, along with historical figures such as Akhenaten, Woodrow Wilson, and Gamal Abd al-Nasser, a strange system of earthly probation that may (or may not) get him to the fabled Seventh Heaven. A teenager is warned not to go near the allegedly haunted wood in his neighborhood, only to be drawn into the secret, enchanted life he finds within it. An honest perfume seller is accosted on a night out by angry skeletons, who threaten to march upon his alley as an avenging army if the sinners there do not change their ways. Satan speaks to us directly - to confess that there is still, despite the flood of evil in our times, an honorable man in the land. These and the other startling stories in The Seventh Heaven make a vivid contribution to the translated works of Egypt’s - and the Arab world’s - greatest modern author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Presenting very different focuses than your usual ghost story gathering
Naguib Mahfouz's supernatural fiction is outstanding, and it's too bad it's lesser known than his other works. The story collection culls his later writings to gather a supernatural presentation under one cover for the first time, presenting very different focuses than your usual ghost story gathering. From a teen facing down a haunted wood in his neighborhood to discover a rare secret to an honest perfume seller accosted by angry skeletons, good and evil are present in the supernatural world, seep into the world of the living, and seep into the satisfying reads here.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Parables on life, death and rebirth
I must confess that I have not read even a portion of the bulk off Naguib Mahfouz's work. He has written over forty novels, hundredths of articles and screenplays and is still in his old age actively writing, despite being severely wounded and subsequently crippled by a "religious" maniac. Nonetheless, it clear that his writing has a certain clearness, a way of looking into the heart of man and despite the honesty of it, leaving us with ambiguity and uncertainty. He makes it clear to us that people are not always what they seem to be and what seems to be moral to one person is trespassing and ultimate sin to another. Moreover, people in his works seem to hover without difficulty between righteousness and a world of shadows. This view of reality and all that is compromises, seems to be the bulwark and foundation of his work and especially these supernatural short stories.

In the first and longest story, The Seventh Heaven, a young student is killed by his best friend out of envy for a woman. The young man, Raouf, encounters Heaven and it is absolutely not what he expects it to be. He is judged by an ancient Egyptian priest, called Abu, who decides whether to let him rise to the second heaven immediately, punish him by reincarnation into a lower life, or send him as a spiritual guide to a lost soul. Raouf learns that the brutal man controlling his alley, the father of his murderous friend Anous, is actually Adolph Hitler and Raoufs own mother an infamous Egyptian serial killer, who unknowingly chose the righteous pass with the help of her spiritual guide. He meets figures world history such as Woodrow Wilson and Akhenaton, the later trying to redeem himself by guiding sinners for over a thousandth years, but failing every time. Raouf is judged as not yet worthy of the second heaven and send as a spiritual guide to unscrupulous Anous. It suffices to say that the whole story and its premise are in striking contrast to Islamic orthodoxy. In "The Disturbing Occurrences" a man appears both sophisticated and benevolent to some and satanic and sadistic to others, all the while the police man investigating him is rendered incapable of deciding which one of the two is his true persona. In "Room No.12" an unwary hotel manager is occupied by the demands of a strange aristocratic lady and her more then unusual guests, when all hell breaks loose. Death, sin, virtue and tradition play a very important part in the allegory of Mahfouz's stories. In "The Rose Garden" a clash between the traditional view of the deceased in Egypt and modern innovation lead to a murder, while in "A Warning from Afar" the spirits of the deceased threaten to march onto a sinful neighborhood as vengeful skeletons.

The stories and parables contained in this collection, with some stories having a time difference of over thirty years, are beautifully thought out reflection on death, virtue, truth and simple human confusion in the bustle and hectic of life. They are rich in allegory and metaphors, very often hovering between pessimism and hope, even reflecting on the unexpected hope and spiritual rebirth (take that literal) that death can bring. No matter what our opinion on his ability to depict the mysterious and otherworldly, Mahfouz's literary and intellectual statue remains unscathed and these stories are worth reading, if only to send a delightful shiver down our spine, or to make us pause for a moment and rethink important matters and convictions which we hold certain.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

El sentimiento echo palabra
Este libro de Mafuz es una clara muestra de la Humanidad del autor, donde muestra el ojo suspicaz por el cual es conocido a nivel mundial. ... Read more

Product Description
Set against the backdrop of the the theater, this novel is a taut psychological drama on and off the stage.  First published in 1981, this brilliant novel focuses on how time transforms people and their emotions. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

The life of a playwright
The Foreword gives the background of the title--the processions, songs, and dances that made up the weddings of the khedives (former Egyptian rulers). So, the WEDDING SONGS must be the narrations of the chapters by Tariq Ramadan the Actor, Karam Younis the prompter, Halima al-Kabsh the mother, and Abbas Karam Younis, whose playscript and life are the narrators' subject. His physical absence is talked of by theatrical colleagues who wonder whether he will show up for the play's first performance. Abbas then narrates, filling in the past and revealing feelings about what has happened, so the reader thinks he has caught up with the Abbas's real life--what is going on with him and how passion and surprises separate practical life from creative imagination, the wellspring for writing. The reader might yet wonder whether Abbas is confusing his life with the characters' lives. After the play is a success, Abbas experiences ennui over the spiritual and material resources to start a second. The non-resolution hints at the philosophy of Lao-tzu's "Tao te Ching" when Abbas awakens to the spiritual joy of the unexplainable: "Let its strength remain unfathomably in its mystery! Lo, its life-giving force marches forward, bearing with it the fragrance of triumph!"

A Provacative Experimentation in Modernism
Even translated, Mahfouz's language in this book as well as his others is both beautiful and enchanting.He grips us with the consistency of his characters, if only in their inconsistency, and with the dramatic unfolding of an unfortunate moralist clinging to survival in his corrupt world.Abbas, the protagonist, is thrown from one extreme to another from the eyes of a blighted lover, to a opium-addicted father unable to decipher reality, and through his guilt-stricken mother trying to keep her family alive.In the end, we are left to decipher what is truth and whose reality it most resembles.
In a world where love is hard to find, a love story, a wedding song, emerges.Its beauty is wrapped within the hatred and cruel words of Abbas's father--its "naked self...revealed without hypocrisy."
This is a tale without devils or an angels, despite Halima's constant wisdom to her son.Mahfouz gives us a beautiful yet brutally honest view of the inner wokings of an Egyptian, or any, family, complete with misunderstanding, hatred, confliction, and love.

Gets progressively better
While I agree with one reviewer's statement that Wedding Song by Naguib Mahfouz is confusing to read, I also think it's fair to say that as the four characters' stories are told, the story gets easier to follow.The most confusing by far is the first one, but ultimately that makes sense when you finish the book.The same story is told four times by four different characters with four different perspectives.The most confusing is from the character that's furthest removed from the truth of what happened.Then the father tells his story (who, by the way, is an opium addict -- that should explain something why it's confusing to follow him a bit), then the mother, and finally the son, who knows the full truth.The son's story is the most interesting because up until that point you'll only be reading perceptions.

I think Wedding Song is a nice experiment by a great author and shouldn't be over-looked.It may not be for everyone, but it's certainly worth the time.It's a quick read as well.

Confusing Stream-of-Consciousness
I have read several of Mahfouz's books, and in my opinion, this is NOT one of his best.I do not enjoy stream-of-consciousness writing.We read this book in our bookclub, and several of us found his writing style very confusing, necessitating continual re-reading to find out who is talking, and about whom, and to whom.Nevertheless, the book is full of psychological implications, as it is four character's viewpoints about the same people and incidents.This is Mahfouz at his worst, and most confusing.If you want to read Mahfouz at his BEST, read instead The Cairo Trilogy.The first book in that trilogy is one of the best books I have ever read, and that one is not written in the stream-of-consciousness style.

Magnificent!
One expects nothing less than brilliance from Mahfouz. And this novel of Middle Eastern values and traditions is another one of Mahfouz's masterpieces. There are great metaphors between the characters' lives onand off their theatrical stage. Definitely recommended! ... Read more