A kaleidoscope of Egyptian family life with its controlling patriarch, submissive wife and daughters and dominated sons whose struggle to throw off their fetters becomes a metaphor for Cairo itself as it rises against British dominance. The characters may not all be likeable but they pulse with life as does the city in all its beauty and squalor. Set at the end of WWI, the engaging and perceptive youngest son must surely be a portrait of Mahfouz himself.
Ed Note: Naquib Mahfouz was given the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988. This is the first book in his Cairo Trilogy, the others are Palace of Desire and Sugar Street
(Jenny Baker - bwl 83 Winter 2017 ) |
