Naguib Mahfouz Books In Order

Cairo Trilogy Books In Order

  1. Palace Walk (1990)
  2. Palace of Desire (1990)
  3. Sugar Street (1991)

Novels

  1. Thebes at War (1939)
  2. The Beginning and the End (1956)
  3. Marketplace Called Khan Il Khalili (1970)
  4. Road (1970)
  5. The Thief and the Dogs (1970)
  6. Whisperings on the Nile (1976)
  7. Mirrors (1977)
  8. Love in the Rain (1979)
  9. The Wedding Song (1981)
  10. Grocer and the Autumn (1985)
  11. The Honeymoon (1985)
  12. The Crime (1985)
  13. Miramar (1988)
  14. Madak Alley (1988)
  15. Midaq Alley (1988)
  16. Fountain and Tomb (1988)
  17. Children of Gebelaawi (1988)
  18. Autumn Quail (1990)
  19. The Beggar (1990)
  20. Respected Sir (1990)
  21. The Search (1991)
  22. The Beggar: Al Shahad (1992)
  23. The Journey of Ibn Fattouma (1992)
  24. Egyptian Time (1992)
  25. Adrift on the Nile (1993)
  26. The Harafish (1994)
  27. Arabian Nights and Days (1994)
  28. Children of the Alley (1995)
  29. Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth (1999)
  30. The Day the Leader Was Killed (1999)
  31. Rhadopis of Nubia (2003)
  32. Khufu’s Wisdom (2004)
  33. Karnak Cafe (2008)
  34. Morning and Evening Talk (2009)
  35. Cairo Modern (2009)
  36. Khan al-Khalili (2011)
  37. The Mirage (2012)
  38. Before the Throne (2012)

Omnibus

  1. The Beggar / Thief and the Dogs / Autumn Quail (2000)
  2. Respected Sir / Wedding Song / the Search (2001)
  3. Three Novels of Ancient Egypt (2007)

Collections

  1. Stories of Neighborhood (1982)
  2. Tales of the Black Cat (1985)
  3. God’s World (1988)
  4. Stories of New Cairo (1988)
  5. The Time and the Place and Other Stories (1991)
  6. The Seventh Heaven (2006)
  7. The Dreams (2009)
  8. The Quarter (2019)

Anthologies edited

  1. Modern Egyptian Short Stories (1990)
  2. Voices from the Other World (2002)

Non fiction

  1. Echoes of an Autobiography (1996)
  2. On Literature and Philosophy (2016)

Cairo Trilogy Book Covers

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Naguib Mahfouz Books Overview

Palace Walk

Palace Walk is the first novel in Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent Cairo Trilogy, an epic family saga of colonial Egypt that is considered his masterwork. 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. 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. Translated by William Maynard Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny

Palace of Desire

The sensual and provocative second volume in the ‘Cairo Trilogy’, ‘Palace of Desire‘ follows the Al Jawad family into the awakening world of the 1920’s and the sometimes violent clash between Islamic ideals, personal dreams and modern realities. Having given up his vices after his son’s death, ageing patriarch Al Sayyid Ahmad pursues an arousing lute player only to find she has married his eldest son. His rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination as they test the loosening reins of societal and parental control. And Ahmad’s youngest son, in an unforgettable portrayal of unrequited love, ardently courts the sophisticated daughter of a rich Europeanised family.

Sugar Street

This is the third part of ‘The Cairo Trilogy’, by the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. It is a true life Egyptian family saga featuring the bullying, pompous patriarch Al Sayyid Ahmed and his long suffering family. This book takes the family into the middle of the 20th century.

Thebes at War

After two hundred years of occupation, the Hyksos leader in his capital in northern Egypt tells Pharaoh in the south that the roaring of the sacred hippopotami at Thebes is keeping him awake at night and demands that they be killed, galvanizing Egypt into hurling its armies into a struggle to drive the barbarians from its sacred soil forever. In battle scenes that pit chariot against chariot and doughty swordsman against doughty swordsman, and through his sensitive portrait of Ahmose, the young pharaoh whose genius brings this epic to its climax, Naguib Mahfouz dramatically depicts the Egyptian people’s undying loyalty to their land and religion and their refusal to bow to outside domination. But this is not just a tale of ancient, clashing armies. When Mahfouz was writing this novel in 1937 38, other outsiders, British and Turkish, held sway over the land of Egypt, and its inhabitants were engaged in a struggle against a foreign usurpation of their sovereignty that mirrored that of their ancestors. Nor is the novel simply a tale of men and arms, for, as Ahmose discovers, while the Nile flows majestically on forever, the violent currents of politics may pull hearts asunder, and in gaining a kingdom, a man may lose what his soul most craves.

The Beginning and the End

First published in 1956, this is a powerful portrayal of a middle class Egyptian family confronted by material, moral, and spiritual problems during World War II.

The Thief and the Dogs

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. After four 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.

Mirrors

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.

The Wedding Song

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.

Miramar

Politically this novel deals with the historical past. Egypt has become less of a socialist country than what it appears to be. Influence and wealth reside over qualifications. One of Mahfouz’s most lyrical novels, this story is an insider’s look at old Alexandria, offering the classic plot of intertwined characters living in a small hotel in post revolutinary Egypt. A retired journalist and his woman friend, who manages the hotel, combine efforts to re examine an Egypt which has just undergone the Socialist Revolution. ‘Like all novels worth their salt, ‘Miramar‘ allows us the rare privilege of entering a national psychology, in a way that a thousandjournalistic articles or television documentaries could not acheive; and perhaps more importantly, beyond, that, we can encounter in it a racila temperment that has been widely misunderstood in the West.’ John Fowles

Midaq Alley

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.

The Beggar

A complex tale of alienation and despair. Unable to achieve psychological renewal in the aftermath of Nasser’s revolution, a man sacrifices his work and family to a series of illicit love affairs that intensify his feelings of estrangement. A passionate outcry against irrelevance. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Search

A powerful story of lust, greed and murder. Unflinching, tough, and dramatic, The Search was most certainly intended to be a harsh criticism of Post Revolution morality, but, on its most elemental level, it is a lurid and compelling tale. From the Trade Paperback edition.

The Journey of Ibn Fattouma

Thwarted in marriage, Ibn Fattouma sets out with a caravan to explore the world, and along the way he marries, sires children, loses his family, is imprisoned for twenty years, and is involved in two civil wars.

Adrift on the Nile

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.

The Harafish

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, Naguib Mahfouz is perhaps the best known living Arab writer. His books have had great success in this country, particularly The Cairo Trilogy. Fans of the famed trilogy will be delighted with The Harafish, an epic novel that chronicles the dramatic history of the al Nagi family a family that moves, over many generations, from the height of power and glory to the depths of decadence and decay. The Harafish begins with the tale of Ashur al Nagi, a man who grows from humble beginnings to become a great leader, a legend among his people. Generation after generation, however, Ashur’s descendants grow further from his legendary example. They lose touch with their origins as they amass and then squander large fortunes, marry prostitutes when they marry at all, and develop rivalries that end in death. The community’s upper class keeps a watchful eye on the descendants of al Nagi for fear of losing their privileges, but they find no threat of another such as Ashur. Not, that is, until the al Nagi who, like his noble ancestor, finds his power once again from among The Harafish, or the common people. Through the strength of their numbers and their passion, the glory of the name of al Nagi is restored. ‘Of all Mahfouz’s experiments in recent decades, this is the one which owes least to western inspiration and is probably the most successful. The Harafish, fluently translated by Catherine Cobham, makes accessible and engrossing reading.’ The Washington Post Book World.

Arabian Nights and Days

A renowned Nobel Prize winning novelist refashions the classic tales of Scheherazade in his own imaginative, spellbinding style. Here are genies and flying carpets, Aladdin and Sinbad, Ali Baba, and many other familiar stories, made new by the magical pen of the acknowledged dean of Arabic letters.

Children of the Alley

There are nineteen works of fiction currently available in paperback from Anchor. Because of the many universal themes of Mahfouz’s work, and the variety of titles from which one can choose, this guide has been designed to provide you with questions that can apply to any or all of the books by Mahfouz which you choose to read. The questions offer new perspectives and context for your conversations. Although each of Mahfouz’s novels is a unique reading experience, in an effort to guide you in making a selection, it is suggested that you might particularly be interested in one of the four following titles, each of which represents a different decade of his career: Palace Walk 1956, Midaq Alley 1966, The Harafish 1977, and The Journey of Ibn Fattouma 1983.

Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo trilogy, comes Akhenaten, a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. In this beguiling new novel, originally published in 1985 and now appearing for the first time in the United States, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the ‘heretic pharaoh,’ or ‘sun king,’ and the first known monotheistic ruler whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty 1540 1307 B.C. has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh’s contemporaries after his horrible death including Akhenaten’s closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten’s court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, ‘the truth’ becomes increasingly evanescent. Akhenaten encompas*ses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly.

The Day the Leader Was Killed

AN ANCHOR PAPERBACK ORIGINALFrom 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 SaidThe 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.’

Rhadopis of Nubia

Against the background of the high politics of Sixth Dynasty Egypt, a powerful love grows between Rhadopis, a courtesan whose ravishing beauty is unmatched in time or place, and youthful, headstrong Pharaoh Merenra, worshiped by his people as a divine presence on earth. Rhadopis comes of poor peasant stock, but her star rises until she become the most celebrated woman in the kingdom, entertaining her countless lovers, who include the most powerful men in the realm, with her dancing, singing, and stimulating intellectual conversation in her white palace on an island in the Nile. Despite the attention and the endless stream of suitors, however, Rhadopis’s heart remains cold and loveless until events conspire in the strangest of ways to bring her to the attention of Pharaoh himself. From there the two of them embark on a journey of intense passion that is totally absorbing and ultimately tragic. As their obsession for one another burns wildly, they become caught up in the violent turbulence of the politics of the day Merenra through his desire to sequester the properties of the priesthood and Rhadopis by her efforts to control the march of destiny and avoid their untimely but inevitable fate. But for Rhadopis, who has played with men’s minds and danced on the scattered shards of their broken hearts, and Pharaoh, who has sought to flaunt ancient tradition for his own ends, can the power of love ultimately offer protection?

Khufu’s Wisdom

Pharaoh Khufu is battling the Fates. At stake is the inheritance of Egypt’s throne, the proud but tender heart of Khufu’s beautiful daughter Princess Meresankh, and Khufu’s legacy as a sage, not savage, ruler. As the tale begins, Khufu is bored in his great palace at Memphis. To entertain him, his architect Mirabu expounds on the mighty masterwork he has so far spent ten years building, with little yet showing above ground what will become the Great Pyramid of Giza. Mirabu and the clever vizier Hemiunu try other amuseme*nts as well but to no avail. Then one of the king’s sons fetches a magician with the power to predict the future. The sorcerer says that Khufu’s own offspring will not inherit Egypt’s throne after him, but that it will fall instead to a son born that very morning to the High Priest of Ra. Furious, Khufu and his crown prince, the ruthless Khafra, set out to change the decree of the Fates which fight back in the form of Djedefra, the boy at the center of the prophecy, and his heart’s desire, Princess Meresankh. Yet will the unsuspecting Khufu survive the intrigue around him not only to finish his long awaited book of wisdom, but to become truly wise?

Karnak Cafe

In this gripping and suspenseful novella from the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner, three young friends survive interrogation by the secret police, only to find their lives poisoned by suspicion, fear, and betrayal. At a Cairo caf in the 1960s, a legendary former belly dancer lovingly presides over a boisterous family of regulars, including a group of idealistic university students. One day, amid reports of a wave of arrests, three of the students disappear: the excitable Hilmi, his friend Ismail, and Ismail’s beautiful girlfriend Zaynab. When they return months later, they are apparently unharmed and yet subtly and profoundly changed. It is only years later, after their lives have been further shattered, that the narrator pieces together the young people’s horrific stories and learns how the government used them against one another. In a riveting final chapter, their torturer himself enters the Caf and sits among his former victims, claiming a right to join their society of the disillusioned. Now translated into English for the first time, Naguib Mahfouz’s tale of the insidious effects of government sanctioned torture and the suspension of rights and freedoms in a time of crisis is shockingly contemporary.

Morning and Evening Talk

This unusual epic from the Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz portrays five generations of one sprawling family against the upheavals of two centuries of modern Egyptian history. Set in Cairo, Morning and Evening Talk traces three related families from the arrival of Napoleon to the 1980s, through short character sketches arranged in alphabetical order. This highly experimental device produces a kind of biographical dictionary, whose individual entries come together to paint a vivid portrait of life in Cairo from a range of perspectives. The characters include representatives of every class and human type and as the intricate family saga unfolds, a powerful picture of a society in transition emerges. This is a tale of change and continuity, of the death of a traditional way of life and the road to independence and beyond, seen through the eyes of Egypt’s citizens. Naguib Mahfouz’s last chronicle of Cairo is both an elegy to a bygone era and a tribute to the Egyptian spirit.

Cairo Modern

In Naguib Mahfouz’s suspenseful novel a bitter and ambitious nihilist, a beautiful and impoverished student, and a corrupt official engage in a doomed m nage 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

Khan al-Khalili

The completion of Khan al Khalili in 1945 marked a turning point in Naguib Mahfouz’s career. Departing from the traditional themes drawn from Egyptian antiquity that characterize the author s earlier works, Khan al Khalili reflects instead a deep concern with the lives and problems of contemporary Egyptians. The time is 1942, the Second World War is at its height, and the Africa Campaign is raging along the northern coast of Egypt as far as El Alamein. Against this backdrop of international upheaval, the novel tells the story of the Akifs, a middle class family that has taken refuge in Cairo s historic and bustling Khan al Khalili neighborhood. Believing that the German forces will never bomb such a famously religious part of the city, they seek safety among the crowded alleyways, busy caf s, and ancient mosques of the Khan, adjacent to the area where Mahfouz himself spent much of his young life. Through the eyes of Ahmad, the eldest Akif son and the novel s central character, Mahfouz presents a richly textured vision of the Khan, drawing on his own memories to assemble a lively cast of characters whose world is framed by the sights, smells, and flavors of his childhood home. As Ahmad, a minor civil servant who has sacrificed both education and personal ambition in order to support his family, interacts with the people and traditions of Khan al Khalili, a debate emerges that pits old against new, history against modernity, and faith against secularism. Addressing one of the fundamental questions of the modern era, Mahfouz asks whether, like the German bombs that threaten Khan al Khalili daily, progress must necessarily be accompanied by the destruction of the past. Fans of Midaq Alley, The Beginning and the End, and The Cairo Trilogy will not want to miss this engaging and sensitive portrayal of a family at the crossroads of the old world and the new.

The Mirage

A psychological study of the first order with a subtly Freudian flavor, The Mirage is the autobiographical account of Kamil Ru’ba, a tortured soul who finds himself struggling unduly to cope with life’s challenges. The internal torment and angst that dog him throughout his life and the tragic, ironic turns of events that overtake him as a young man are, to a great extent, the outworkings of his faulty upbringing. At the same time, they work together to drive home the novel’s underlying theme: the illusory, undependable nature of the world in which we live and the call to seek, beyond the outward and the ephemeral, that which is inward and enduring. The narrative, full of pathos, draws the reader unwittingly into a vicarious experience of Kamil’s agonies and ecstasies. As such, it is a specimen of Mahfouz’s prose at its finest.

The Beggar / Thief and the Dogs / Autumn Quail

Anchor proudly presents a new omnibus volume of three novels previously published separately by Anchor by Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Assembled here is a collection of Mahfouz’s artful meditations on the vicissitudes of post Revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique, together they render a rich, nuanced, and universally resonant vision of modern life in the Middle East.

The Beggar is a complex tale of alienation and despair. In the aftermath of Nasser’s revolution, a man sacrifices his work and family to a series of illicit love affairs. Released from jail in post Revolutionary times, the hero ofThe Thief and the Dogs blames an unjust society for his ill fortune, eventually bringing himself to destruction. Autumn Quail is a tale of moral responsibility, isolation, and political downfall about a corrupt bureaucrat who is one of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 revolution in Egypt.

Respected Sir / Wedding Song / the Search

A new volume of three novels previously published separately by Anchor by Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Together with The Beggar, The Thief and The Dogs, and Autumn Quail published by Anchor in December 2000, these novels represent a comprehensive collection of Mahfouz’s artful meditations on post revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique, they render a nuanced and universally resonant vision of modern life in the Middle East.

Respected Sir, a latter day Bleak House in Arabic The New York Times, revisits a familiar theme vaulting ambition in a powerful and religious metaphor. Wedding Song, one of Mahfouz s most enjoyable works The Chicago Tribune, is a psychological drama, focusing on how four very different kinds of minds apprehend and reckon with the realities that surround them. The Search is a powerful, lurid, and compelling story of lust, greed, and murder.

Three Novels of Ancient Egypt

Book Jacket Status: JacketedFrom 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.

The Time and the Place and Other Stories

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. PW. K.

The Seventh Heaven

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.

The Dreams

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.

Voices from the Other World

The forces of law and order disturb a district’s too perfect peace at the dawn of Egyptian civilization. A wise and popular pharaoh is betrayed by his own son, and by his dearest friends then makes a most peculiar decision. A mummy returns to life after three thousand years, to confront the arrogant new race that now rules the land. A favored prince flees to a faraway country when the king dies suddenly, leaving his true love behind only to come back to question her about their forty lost years. A famous young writer, composer of a legendary epic of Pharaoh’s greatest battle with the Hittites, is carried off without warning by a mysterious disease then speaks to us in this life from beyond the veil of death. Such are the tales that make up this volume of five masterly stories by the young Naguib Mahfouz, all inspired by the Egypt of the pharaohs. Like three novels set in ancient times that he also published early in his career, these stories reveal his wide reading of Egypt’s and the world’s oldest history and literature. All of these gems, however, are very much his own creations. Their voices speak with the familiar genius of Egypt’s greatest modern writer though they call from a very different world than the one for which he is best known.

Echoes of an Autobiography

From the Foreword by Nadine Gordimer: ‘These pieces are meditations which echo that which was, has been, and is the writer Mahfouz. They are in the words of the title of one of the prose pieces ‘The Dialogue of the Late Afternoon’ of his life. I don’t believe any autobiography, with its inevitable implication of self presentation, could have matched what we have here.’With more than 500,000 copies of his books in print, Naguib Mahfouz has established a following of readers for whom Echoes of an Autobiography provides a unique opportunity to catch an intimate glimpse into the life and mind of this magnificent storyteller. Here, in his first work of nonfiction ever to be published in the United States, Mahfouz considers the myriad perplexities of existence, including preoccupations with old age, death, and life’s transitory nature. A surprising and delightful departure from his bestselling and much loved fiction, this unusual and thoughtful book is breathtaking evidence of the fact that Naguib Mahfouz is not only a ‘storyteller of the first order’ Vanity Fair, but also a profound thinker of the first order.

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