Najīb Maḥfūẓ
1) Midaq Alley
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Language
English
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.
Author
Series
Novels volume 2
Language
English
Description
Continuing the story of al-Sayyid Ahmad and his family, this is a fascinating look at Egypt in the 1920s. Increased personal freedoms mix tenuously with traditions of family control, as two of Ahmad's sons court alluring women. Sequel to "Palace walk" and second story in "The Cairo trilogy."
Author
Language
English
Description
The tale of a Mafia-like don in Egypt. He lives in a mansion in Cairo, uphill at the end of an alley whose inhabitants he exploits. He is the patriarch of a large family whose wealth comes from dealing in drugs and various protection rackets. While family members jockey for power, the people below live in squalor, dreaming of the revolutionary heroes their poverty produced. An expose of injustice in Egypt by a Nobel Prize winner and author of 30 novels....
8) Sugar street
Author
Series
Novels volume 3
Language
English
Description
This is is the third book in the Cairo trilogy. Sugar Street is the continuing saga of the Al Jawad family. It tells the story of the family of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad moving into the middle of the twentieth century while the seeds of contemporary Egypt are sown.
9) Palace walk
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Series
Language
English
Description
The engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900's. Arabic title: Bayn al-Qasrayn. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Jaafar Ibrahim Sayyed al-Rawi is guided by his motto, “let life be filled with holy madness to the last breath.” He narrates his life story to a friend during one long night in a café in old Cairo. Through a series of bad decisions, he has lost everything: his family, his position in society, and his fortune. A man driven by his passions, he married a beautiful Bedouin nomad for love, and as a consequence pays a punishingly high price. From a...
Author
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English
Description
"On a school playground in the stylish Cairo suburb of Abbasiya, five young boys become friends for life, making a nearby café, Qushtumur, their favorite gathering spot forever. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian (and classically Mahfouzian) quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place. In a seamless stream of personal...
17) Qaṣr al-shawq
Author
Language
Arabic
Description
A father who is a disciplinarian with his wife and family, is nonetheless less good at disciplining himself. He frequents nightclubs in the evening and falls in love with a dancer there, the same woman his son is in love with.
Author
Language
Arabic
Description
Tatanawal hadhih alriwayat fatrat 'akhnatun waldaewat 'iilaya aldiyanat altwhydyt ean tariq bahith lilhaqiqat yuhawil 'an yanqul shahadat min easaruu hadhih alfatrat wakanuu bijiwar. Alearsh , laqad najah fi naql alshahadat kama hi hati 'ana alqari qad yusab bialairtibak wayatasa'al ma hi haqiqat hdha almalik alghamid !