Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52480 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-28
• Original language: Arabic
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1354 pages

Customer Reviews

The Cairo Trilogy- A Masterpiece
This is one of my favorite books, I highly recommend it! Please do not be put off by its size! It is a trilogy of three novels, each one neatly divided into small, readable chapters. It is written in straight-forward, simple and accessible language while simultaneously managing to describe life in Egypt beautifully and with attention to detail (without losing focus of the story or going off into tedious descriptions). Naguib Mahfouz has won the Nobel Prize for Literature and this book clearly shows why he deserved it!

The three novels in the book are:
Palace Walk
Palace of Desire
Sugar Street

The story is that of three generations of a family living in Egypt;It begins with al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, the household's 'paterfamilias'. He is a controlling and tyrannical man, who keeps his wife (Amina) on a short leash and dictates to his 5 children as to how they should live and comport themselves. However, once he leaves the house and meets his friends he indulges in all kinds of debauchery and breaks many of his own rules! The children, 3 boys and 2 girls have each got distinct characters and are easy to associate with and tell apart. One of the main characters is Kamal (one of the boys) and the three novels can be seen to represent the three phases of his life from childhood to youth to adulthood. I don't want to give away any of the plot, but it remains interesting throughout all three novels; there are periods of sadness and periods of happiness as occurs in families everywhere in the world. You do not have to be from Egypt to enjoy this book, it is a universal piece of work and I believe it should be more widely read. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did...

majestic
conveys a sense of of the place and the time in a language that captivates. Absorbing reading

A wonderful insight into a time goneby
I read this wonderful trilogy about a dozen years ago and it still resonates though the details of the plot have long since passed me by. The author won the Nobel prize for literature (in the 90s, I think) and this trilogy shows why.