About the Author

Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arab winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the most prominent literary figure in the Arab world of the Twentieth Century. Best known for his Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Walk), which became an international bestseller, he was born in Cairo in 1911 and lived in the suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters for the rest of his life. He published more than thirty novels as well as many collections of short stories, plays and screenplays. In 1994, after he published a novel that led him into trouble with Egypt's religious authorities, an attempt was made on his life, but he died peacefully in 2006, aged 94.

Reviews

"The highest achievement of "The Cairo Trilogy" [is] the creation of memorable characters whose circumstances of life are unimaginably remote from our own, but whose aspirations are the same. "The Cairo Trilogy" extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it." -"Boston Globe"
"Luminous...All the magic, mystery and suffering of Egypt in the 1920s are conveyed on a human scale." -"New York Times Book Review"
"The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens." -"Newsweek"
"A masterful kaleidoscope of emotions, ideas and perspective. Mahfouz has captured a family and its homeland at one gloriously varied moment in a cycle." -"Newsday"
"Mahfouz presents us with a different concept of the world and makes it real. His genius is not just that he shows us Egyptian colonial society in all its complexity; it is that he makes us look through the vision of his

"The highest achievement of "The Cairo Trilogy" [is] the creation of memorable characters whose circumstances of life are unimaginably remote from our own, but whose aspirations are the same. "The Cairo Trilogy" extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it." -"Boston Globe"
"Luminous...All the magic, mystery and suffering of Egypt in the 1920s are conveyed on a human scale." -"New York Times Book Review"
"The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens." -"Newsweek"
"A masterful kaleidoscope of emotions, ideas and perspective. Mahfouz has captured a family and its homeland at one gloriously varied moment in a cycle." -"Newsday"
"Mahfouz presents us with a different concept of the world and makes i

"The highest achievement of "The Cairo Trilogy" Ýis¨ the creation of memorable characters whose circumstances of life are unimaginably remote from our own, but whose aspirations are the same. "The Cairo Trilogy" extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it." -"Boston Globe"
"Luminous...All the magic, mystery and suffering of Egypt in the 1920s are conveyed on a human scale." -"New York Times Book Review"
"The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens." -"Newsweek"
"A masterful kaleidoscope of emotions, ideas and perspective. Mahfouz has captured a family and its homeland at one gloriously varied moment in a cycle." -"Newsday"
"Mahfouz presents us with a different concept of the world and makes it real. His genius is not just that he shows us Egyptian colonial society in all its complexity; it is that he makes us look through the vision of his vivid characters and see people and ideas that no longer seem alien." -"Philadelphia Inquirer"

"The highest achievement of "The Cairo Trilogy [is] the creation of memorable characters whose circumstances of life are unimaginably remote from our own, but whose aspirations are the same. "The Cairo Trilogy extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it." -"Boston Globe
"Luminous...All the magic, mystery and suffering of Egypt in the 1920s are conveyed on a human scale." -"New York Times Book Review
"The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens." -"Newsweek
"A masterful kaleidoscope of emotions, ideas and perspective. Mahfouz has captured a family and its homeland at one gloriously varied moment in a cycle." -"Newsday
"Mahfouz presents us with a different concept of the world and makes it real. His genius is not just that he shows us Egyptian colonial society in all its complexity; it is that he makes us look through the vision of his vivid characters and see people and ideas that no longer seem alien." -"Philadelphia Inquirer