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.

This novel is considered to be the best Mahfouz ever written through his long career as a storyteller.

It consists of 3 parts: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street; and just to make things clear, the above three titles are supposed to be names of quarters in Egypt (with "between two castles" instead of "Palace walk").

The first part introduces Ahmad Abdul-Jawad the merchant and father of 3 boys and 2 girls, and the husband of the weak degraded wife Amina.

The story really spans over the way he treated his family firmly, as opposed to his secret way of life, as a self-indulging playboy. The two elder sons play major roles in the story, one of whom is a hard working student and the other is a big time lady's man. Najib Mahfouz made a good job in expressing the two girls feelings about marriage. ... 5 stars

The second part continues from where the first stopped, and is agian a good read. It explores what happened after the dramatic occurences in the first part, and the major hero of this part is Kamal the youngest son of Abdul-Jawad. It explores his silent Platonic love with a high-class rich girl. It also explores how he turned from a fundamentalist to a total disbeliever. ... 4 stars

The third part is the one I hated the most, it seemed to me as an account promoting communism. It explores the live of the sons and grand sons of Abdul-Jawad, who can't get out of his house. Homosexuality is added to this volume as an extra. Kamal is still studying and writing about philosophy, and is still a big time disbeliever. ... 3 stars

And over all, Mahfouz does a great job in expressing the feelings of people, but the only thing I hate about his writing style is that he makes no distinction between the narrator and the hero.

I agree with everything said by the reviewer "imperato", he beat me to the chase. That might tell you something as a reader -- Mahfouz's literature transcends the personal. Again, his writing has qualities that surpass any of the great classics I have known. A soft, yet stimulating style, rich with detail and full of emtotional involvement. You might become enamored with Mahfouz, as I did, and read every last drop he has written. It is no exxageration to say that the ease of familiarity in his writing even surpasses Hemingway. Palace Walk in particular is an intriguing, emotional read. The quality diminishes with each volume, but after Palace Walk you will need to find out what happens next, for this reason you might as well buy the full set of three novels.

Don't let the size of this book scare you off. The chapters are short and are themselves self-contained stories: they make for perfect nighttime reading installments! And the plot, characters and wisdom of the book are consistently illuminating from the first pages to the very end. It is staggering how effortlessly Mahfouz feeds us the richest possible detail without ever allowing the energy of the story to flag.

In the wake of war in Iraq, an American reader will be particularly enriched from experiencing this novel. It tells the story of three generations of an Egyptian family between the two World Wars and reveals much about daily life in a Muslim family and the manner in which Western geopolitics impacted Arab life and culture. The pull of Western values and ideas on traditional Egyptian culture is so clearly and persuasively presented that the politics, resentments and even opportunities for understanding in today's Middle East suddenly seem much more discernible.

What makes the book a real standout is the way it presents profound life lessons and experiences in such a highly entertaining fashion. Serious political and social issues are explored beside the very real, sometimes ugly and often hilarious foibles of each character. The sincere quest for holiness seems as important and genuine in the lives of characters as the unquenchable thirst for pleasure. Mahfouz never preaches about the "correct path", but rather shares the complicated lives of his characters without sentimentality, prejudice or judgment.

The Cairo Trilogy is a breathtaking, uplifting and deeply affecting achievement. The prose is luminous, the incredible evocation of the sights and smells of Egypt unforgettable, the believability of the characters complete. Readers of Mann, Tolstoy, and Henry James will find in Mahfouz a similar command of grand architechture and epic sweep but unlike those writers Mahfouz's prose is light and airy and full of a master storyteller's ease. Throughout the book you marvel not only at the author's command of his craft, but also the clarity of his vision in showing us what matters.

In the end, what may make The Cairo Trilogy the most compelling for Western readers is that the family at the center of the tale is so very different from us and yet so like us. As modernity encroaches upon the family of the forbidding Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his dedicated wife Amina, you feel the same sense of loss and melancholy that they feel realizing that in the age of television and instant communication and mass marketed culture, the simple splendors of the family coffee hour may be forever behind us. If politicians and religious leaders around the world have shown themselves consistently unable to bridge the gaps between cultures, Mahfouz the novelist must be read if only to reconnect us with the essence of our shared humanity.

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
activisim; 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 nostaligia, he manages to re-examine his own life in its entire context -- and still be able to smile.

It was a fascinating read. The place,the time and the characters-- only mahfouz can write a book this way

No one, but Naguib Mahfouz can depict internal pain and human struggles with such elegance.

Here again is Mahfouz sunk in the depth of this new phase of his, the phase that started with "The Theif and The Dogs" followed by "Autumn Grocer Quail," non of which I liked that much.

In this one, I think, Mahfouz mastered this new writing disciplin of his. Now he knows what he wants to do and what to say, and he pretty much did a good job.

This story, I feel, combines elements from this and the previous phases (The privious phase was the one ending with the Trilogy). It is a romance, and is a deep study of the psychology of Egyptians.

The story starts with a prostitute/pimp mother revealing to her son that his father was still alife and is a wealthy man. Then she dies. The boy starts "The Search" for his father, which is the title of the novel. The real Arabic title was "The Road." The story from this point on takes a different turn. You would think that the story is only conserned with the search for the father. I think what Mahfouz wants is the search for the identity.

I think this is a story of how a man can be both a villain and a magnanimous. How a man can both enjoy a platonic love and indulge in an animalistic sexual relationship in the same time.

Mahfouz does a great job describing the feelings of a suspicious man, and how this might lead him to a point from where he cannot return. How a man can hate the same person he used to love, or on whome his life depended.

The story is worth reading, and is one of the best I read. If you already like it, why don't you try "Midaq Alley" and "The Trilogy." For more reviews about Mahfouz's books, please strike the blue "a_mathematician" below the title of this review, and enjoy.

A man born in a luxury brothel is asked by his mother, a madam, to search for his father. During the search he meets two women : the unselfish Ilhaam and the provocative Kariema, who is married to a much older man. The man is torn between the two: Ilhaam, a reflection of his father - a promise and a dream difficult to become true- and Kariema, a reflection of his mother - sensual pleasure and criminal practices. Kariema asks him to kill her husband and to marry her. In the meantime the search for his father continues.
A thrilling story, sensually written.

Naguib Mahfouz is probably one of the most controversial and prominent writers the Arab world has ever known. His novels give a vivid and intimate depiction of life in his native Egypt. Some have said that reading one of his books is just like sitting at a maqha (coffee house) in Alexandria. All this can be seen very clearly in one of his best novels ever "The Search". In it we are told the story of Saber el Reheimy, a man torn between a dark past and a hopeless future. His mother was a prostitute. Right before she dies she tells him that his father is still alive (ok...not the most original idea in the world, but nevertheless makes for an interesting story). He goes out to search for his father but instead finds something else, himself. The story is quite exhilarating; I was not able to put it down until the end (which by the way was highly unexpected).

"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.

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.

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.

The story of a careerist who becomes CEO ... on his deathbed.
The relentless but futile effort of a man who wants to become somebody, but who uses, as Nietzsche said, the wrong conjugation: he doesn't live, he is lived.
Beautifully told.

His books are always interesting. This one is no exception. A short book but very interesting and insightful. Definitely worth reading.

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.

It's "Scheherazade Redux" in Naguib Mahfouz's "Arabian Nights and Days." The
1988 Nobel Prize for literature winner takes the times and ages-old story and gives us a
re-telling, carving his initials on some of those characters (and stories) of a thousand
and one nights: Sinbad, Aladdin, Scheherazade, etc.
It is a tale told by a learned Egyptian who's display of the original themes take on a
more modern glimmer. Granted, Mahfouz keeps the setting in the middle ages, but he
takes those themes and re-iterates their timeliness.
Once again, here are the genies and humans facing (sometimes defying) love, hatred,
greed, lust, and certainly the social injustices of any corrupt system. Throughout the
narrative, good is constantly squaring off against evil. That there's nothing new under
the sun doesn't phase Mahfouz, however, as he takes some seventeen tales and
skillfully weaves them into his own magical spell.

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 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. That said, however, the author
(already some 30 novels to his credit), strikes adamantly at issues that transcend into
modern, more socially-significant items of today and thus "Arabian Nights and Days"
is more than just a fairy tale. It's a good read. (...)

The book is very readable and not too long, and the translation is excellent. Starting where the traditional Arabian Nights' Entertainment leaves off, Mahfouz cleverly describes surprising events in a world in which "jinn" (genies) are actively involved in the affairs of mankind. The tale is very enjoyable.

But on another level, Mahfouz indirectly poses a more philosophical query: to what extent am I responsible for my actions, and if I err, to what extent can I blame circumstances, outside interference, and my inherent weakness as a human being? And if a very wicked person repents of his evil deeds, how much forgiveness is he entitled to in this world?

I recommend the book.

I first read this book in Kuwait. My dog-eared copy still has sand in the pages, so they make a desert noise when I turn them. It always takes me straight back...

Mahfouz is not easy for an American reader. We like to know what's about to happen, and we like the story to "get there" in a few strokes (witness Tom Clancy.) The language is beautiful--too beautiful for many Americans-- and the setting is so real, so evocative that I can smell Egypt when I'm reading this trilogy (or is that the sand again?)

If you feel like you need to warm up to this series, I suggest that you start with "Miramar" or, better yet, "Arabian Nights and Days." Mahfouz's work is always allegorical; characters reflect the passage of their era, and the language is part of that reflection. Many other reviewers have complained that they "don't get the language"-- well, I can read Arabic as well, and I have stabbed at the original text before, so I can safely tell you that (like anything in the Middle East) language is *everything.* Once you understand that, you can start understanding the people who live there.

This book begins the saga of a family in crisis. It isn't a single event, but a slow evolution brought on by the irrepressible challenge of modernity. Young people want to shake off old traditions...Adults misbehave in secret...And in Cairo, the home becomes a place where secrets are kept hidden from those within while it protects secrets on the outside. It is an allegory of the Egyptian soul in the age of independence. The trilogy metes these secrets out one by one, until the walls that "protect" inside and outside begin to crumble. People must make new lives and develop new self-identities.

This is all the more important whan you consider that Mahfouz is something of a prisoner in his own home--radical Jihadists have threatened his life. He has lived a VERY long time, and seen everything Egypt has gone through, so no one is better qualified to write about his country's experience in the 20th century.

"The Palace Walk" is the first book of the Cairo trilogy, Mahfouz's family saga set in Egypt post WWI during the British occupation. The family's story is woven into greater events in the larger world as the Egyptian nationalistic movement grows in opposition to British rule.

The author's style of writing includes rich character descriptions, humor and great attention to detail without ever being tedious. The characters became very real to me and "The Palace Walk" leaves me very eager to start reading Book 2. The family patriarch is the central character of the first book, a tyrant that has bullied & terrified every member of his family but has a totally different private life away from the home.

As well as being a great family saga, this is excellent historical fiction, showing the beginnings of change in the 20th century in this part of the Mid-East.

In this first volume of the Cairo Trilogy, Mahfouz reconstructs in great detail the everyday life of pre-independence Egypt through the story of one extended family. In many ways it's like an Egyptian version of those 19th century English novels by Eliot and Dickens that are filled with detail, description, a multitude of characters and social types (although I in no way intend some kind of neo/proto-colonial comparison here -- that's just what it reminded me of) I found it a little hard to get into at first, but once I got in I couldn't put it down and read the entire trilogy straight through. This is the kind of book that immerses you in a total world, and the trilogy a series of books that you can live in and live with over the course of a week or two. I also found I learned a lot about Egyptian history and culture and the city of Cairo during this period just by reading these books.

Although I consider Mahfouz to be one of the very finest writers of the 20th century, I found this novel very dissapointing.

It is no secret that many of Mahfouz's (early) works were written as a sort of political commentary, as explorations and critiques of Egyptian society and the prevailing power structures. In my opinion this is a severe impediment to a modern reader, especially one unfamiliar with Egyptian history, as we are unable to fully appreciate the political subtexts and place the narrative in a proper historical setting. The introduction to the book is of little help, as it does not properly describe political figures like Ismail Sidki or Taha Hussein, nor does it describe the objectives of the Wafdist party.

This isn't the only Mahfouz novel that can be read as an allegory, as a social and political commentary, but it is one of his most heavyhanded treatments (excepting his early historical novels, which must almost neccessarily be read as political criticism). I believe that in later works he was able to channel his concerns and beliefs into a more believable and realistic narrative structure, and it may well be the case that this ability was the product of an increasingly liberal and permissive government (i.e., by allowing Mahfouz' characters to discuss their political concerns in a more direct and open way, instead of forcing Mahfouz to address his concerns through more highly structured allegories). Be that as it may, in this novel the characters are chosen to reflect the different elements and views of Egyptian society, but it doesn't come across as being a completely honest portrayal. I don't know that I've articulated my concerns about this very well, but it does seem somehow false. As I've said earlier, our ignorance and separation from 1940's Egypt compounds the problem, as the author's political concerns are of diminished relevance and interest to us.

The translation was done by Ramses Awad, who also wrote the introduction, and I must say he did a very poor job. One of the most striking problems with the translation is the incessant misuse or mistranslation of the word 'confusion.' The word pops up again and again, on almost every page, and in almost none of the circumstances is it an appropriate choice. It is sometimes used to suggest a sense of embarassment, sometimes to indicate a feeling of discomfort, and sometimes when the character is at a loss for words, or is unsure of what to do. Given the poetic and flowing nature that usually typifies Mahfouz's work, even in translation, Ramses Awad's work on this book is a grave disservice to the author.

I read this book because I will read any Mahfouz I can get my hands on. If you are looking for an introduction to Mahfouz, or if you just want to read more of him, there are certainly better choices available... The Cairo Trilogy is unsurpassed, and The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, Midaq Alley, The Harafish, and many others are all preferable to this.

"The Beginning and the End" is the story of the Kamel family in mid-1940's Egypt, left in poverty by the death of the father. Left to fend for themselves are the mother, Samira, her daughter Nefisa, and three sons, Hassan, Hussein and Hassanein. Hassan is a ne'er-do-well, a thug and drug dealer who lives on the margins of society. Hussein is a fundamentally decent individual, quiet, hardworking, caring and empathetic. We like him a lot better than his younger brother Hassanein, an arrogant, conceited go-getter and social climber who carves himself out a promising career in the military and doesn't care who he tramples on to reach his goals. The tragic figure in this family is the daughter Nefisa, cursed with a homely face that makes marriage an unlikely prospect, and doubly cursed with a rampant sexual appetite that has no sanctioned outlet whatever for an unmarried woman in a muslim society. Hassanein has no problem dumping his fiancee at the drop of a hat when he decides her family isn't of the class he aspires to belong to; he will disown his brother Hassan rather than be connected to petty criminal. But he's brought up short against his sister's descent into prostitution, and his solution shows him in all his appalling soullessness. "The Beginning and the End" shows us a family and a society torn apart by the conflict between tradition and modernity, especially in its depictions of a society in which women's lives are so circumscribed that they have nothing to look forward to except a marriage that may never materialize. Mahfouz is not a very profound writer, but his sympathy for his characters, including the most degraded, is evident; he empathizes, never moralizes, and shows us a convincing picture of a family in torment. I thought the translation was a good one; it's not stilted or overdone and it flows easily from one chapter to the next. Mahfouz has given us in this book an intriguing story of a family divided against itself.

I enjoyed this book very much. I had read the Cairo Trilogy a short time before. As I started this book I wondered if I might not enjoy it because of having just read over 1000 pages of Mahfouz. I needn't have worried. B&E was a totally different story but in wonderfully similar setting and style. I kept thinking that it was almost a photographic negative of the Trilogy. I enjoyed it more having just read the 3 books, as I contrasted the family of Kamel Ali with the family of Abd al-Jawad. Good book.

Okay, I confess: I plagiarized the adjective beguiling from the back cover, but it was the best one word phrase I could come up with to describe this quirky book. In some senses, it reminds me of a detective narrative, a kind of Egyptian Oedipus who is searching for the "truth." The story in this case revolves around this monotheistic pharaoh and his peculiar religious leadership and reign. I'm not an expert at the history of the period -- my above reviewer points out several inaccuracies which if true would be disappointing to me. After reading 15 or so different interviews of those close to Akhenaten, some of the mysteries are resolved. It's a short read and quite a unique narrative that will transplant you to ancient Egypt. It's amazing at times how modern the narrative feels. How much really separates sexual escapades of someone like Clinton from those of the ancients? Not much as we see from our study of history. A bit offbeat, but a good read on an intriguing subject.

From Nobel Prize winning author, a new look at the controversial reign of Pharoah Akhenaten and his beautiful wife Nefertiti. Akhenaten, turning his back on the political and religious power structure which supported Egyptian pharaohs, rejected polytheism in favor of a single deity of love, light and joy, which precluded violence, punishment, and war. He left the traditional home of pharaohs, Thebes, and built a new governing city to his new deity. Although the population of Egypt adored this new enlightened governance, the strength and reach of the Egyptian empire soon crumbled as enemies encroached upon its borders with impunity and finally, the military and powerful priests gave Akhenaten an ultimatum-give up your throne...or else. As a result, Tuthankamen, Akhenaten's young brother, was placed upon the throne and Akhenaten's rule ended in imprisonment and a suspiciously early death. Mahfouz's well researched historical fiction constitutes interviews with the key power players recalling the reign and crisis of Akhenaten's rule, each perspective revealing the speaker's political biases. The sum provides an easy and fascinating glimpse into an unusual period of Ancient Egyptian history.

Living in a modern Egypt where the belief in one God is the accepted denomination of worship, Mahfouz poses this question: what would it be like a few thousand years ago when the table was turned, and the concept a sole-creator was a subject of heresy? In Akhenaten, the historical heretic of ancient Egypt, Mahfouz finds a way to construct a little tale that is laden with the ever-important philisophical questions about faith.
The narration, done in what I always call a 'Rashomon' style, is based on the stories from different people around Akhenaten as told to a curious young man in search of the truth about the heretic. These views reflect a wide spectrum of perception about Akhenaten, from simply abhorrent as in the high priest of Amun's, (Amun is God of Thebes, the leader of all Gods in the structure of beliefs in ancient Egypt), to the loyal and loving views of Nesfertiti, the infamous wife of Akhenaten.

Ironically, for stories that are supposed to shed light on the truth, they pose more problems than answers. These questions can be divided into two levels, one that relates to the myriad of characters, and the other the philosophical realm of one's faith. The stories as told are intrinsically intriguing, filled with insinuations that get muddier as more perspectives are offered. They encompass greed, jealousy, loyalty, love and more, and the narration is built in such away that the next interviewee tells on the previous' motives. However, as these are purely opinions and hearsays, it is hard to construct an objective story that reflects the true nature of each character aside from mere speculations. On the other hand, as the story of Akhenaten begins to take shape, most readers who adopt a monotheistic take on religion might discover a lot of parallels between Akhenaten's religion and their own. And in these reflections lie the eternal questions about one's belief, such as how much of religion should be tied to governance or if being an absolute pacifist can solve the mundane but realistic conflicts.

In its simplicty, lurks a deeply evocative book. Short and straightforward as it might be, 'Akhenaten' does not leave you in peace even after you finish reading it. It is a deep parable that makes you wonder what it takes to be a faithful being.