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.

رواية

Selected and translated by the distinguished scholar Denys Johnson-Daivies, these stories have all the celebrated and distinctive characters and qualities found in Mahfouz's novels:  The denizens of the dark, narrow alleyways of Cairo, who struggle to survive the poverty; melancholy ruminations on death; experiments with the supernatural; and witty excursions into Cairene middle-class life.

The novel is set in 1960s Alexandria at the pension Miramar. The novel follows the interactions of the residents of the pension, its Greek mistress Mariana, and her servant, Zohra. As each character in turn fights for Zohra's affections or allegiance tensions and jealousies arise. The story is retold four times from the perspective of a different resident each time, allowing the reader to understand the intricacies of post-revolutionary Egyptian life.

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 From the Trade Paperback edition.

Nearly sixty of Egypt’s past leaders—from the time of the Pharoahs to the twentieth century—are summoned to judgment in the Court of Osiris in the Afterlife, in this extraordinary novel by Nobel Prize–winning author Naguib Mahfouz. Before the Throne calls forth a parade of those who have shaped the modern nation of Egypt—from the ruler who first unified Egypt in 3000 BC to Anwar Sadat, the president assassinated by religious extremists in 1981, and including figures as various as the famous pharaoh Ramesses II and the medieval vizier Qaraqush. As they defend their decisions under questioning by Osiris, Isis, and Horus, those who acted for the nation’s good are honored with immortality in paradise while those who failed to protect it are condemned either to the inferno or to “the place of insignificance.” Full of Mahfouz’s unique insight into his country’s timeless qualities, this provocative work skillfully traces five thousand years of Egypt’s past as it flows into the turbulent present. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock

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 café 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 Café 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.

A classic Mahfouz story exploring themes of marriage across class lines, spirituality, and the harsh realities of a precarious life. Jaafar Ibrahim Sayyed al-Rawi, the main character in this most recently translated Mahfouz novel, 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 cafe 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 life of comfort with a promising future guaranteed by his wealthy grandfather, he descends to the spartan life of a pauper, after being disinherited. Jaafar faces his tribulations with surprising stoicism and hope, sustained by his strong convictions, his spirituality, his sense of mission, and his deep desire to bring social justice to his people. "

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.

A stunning example of Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz’s psychological portraiture, The Mirage is the story of an intense young man who has been so dominated by his mother that her death sets him dangerously adrift in a world he cannot manage alone. Kamil Ru’ba is a tortured soul who hopes that writing the story of his life will help him gain control of it. Raised by a mother who fled her abusive husband and became overbearingly possessive and protective toward her young son, he has long been isolated emotionally and physically. Now in his twenties, Kamil seeks to escape her posthumous grasp. Finding and successfully courting the woman of his dreams seems to promise salvation, until his ignorance of mature love and his fear and jealousy lead to tragedy. 

This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Palace Walk, the Journey of Ibn Fattouma, the Beggar, Midaq Alley, the Thief and the Dogs, Children of Gebelawi, the Beginning and the End, Cairo Trilogy, Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth, the Search, the Day the Leader Was Killed, Miramar, Arabian Nights and Days, the Harafish, Palace of Desire. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Palace Walk (Arabic title ) is a novel by Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, and the first installment of Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. Originally published in 1956 with the title Bayn al-qasrayn (lit. Between the Two Palaces), the book was translated into English in 1990. The setting of the novel is Cairo during and just after World War I. Palace Walk is the first book of the Cairo Trilogy, set in Cairo, Egypt. It begins in 1917, during World War I, and ends in 1919, the year of the nationalist revolution. The book's Arabic title translates literally into 'between two palaces' - a phrase which highlights the cultural and political transition Egypt experienced at this time, developments brought into focus by the lives of the el-Gawad family., M K Ahmad Abd al-Jawad is the tyrannical head of his household, demanding total, unquestioning obedience from his wife, Amina, his sons, Yasin, Fahmy and Kamal, and his daughters, Khadija and Aisha. A fearsome and occasionally violent presence at home who insists on strict rules of Muslim piety and sobriety in the house -- for example, his wife is hardly ever allowed to leave the house, to maintain the family's good name -- al-Sayyid Ahmad permits himself officially forbidden pleasures, particularly music, drinking wine and conducting numerous extramarital affairs with women he meets at his grocery store, or with courtesans who entertain parties of men at their hou...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=6829111

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.

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." From the Trade Paperback edition.

(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) From Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz: the three magnificent novels-published in an omnibus edition for the first time--that form anancient-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 theEgyptian 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 thepossibility 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 ravishingcourtesan 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 twocenturies. "Three Novels of Ancient Egypt" gives us a dazzling tapestry of ancient Egypt and reminds us of the remarkable artistry of NaguibMahfouz. "From the Hardcover edition."