The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library) [Hardcover]

Naguib Mahfouz (Author), Sabry Hafez (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 16, 2001

 

Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for the first time. The Nobel Prize—winning writer’s masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain’s occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century.

 

The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons–the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s. Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician.

 

Throughout the trilogy, the family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humor, and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Arabic

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1368 pages
• Publisher: Everyman's Library; 1st Everyman's edition (October 16, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375413316
• ISBN-13: 978-0375413315
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 2.3 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,957 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and, above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mr Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

132 of 133 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Cairo Trilogy: Timely and Timeless, April 17, 2003

By 

Albert Imperato "imperato711" (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

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.

45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ranks with Tolstoy in Style and Substance, August 25, 2002

By 

Suzanne E. Anderson "Author of Mrs. Tuesday's... (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

I am so happy to see the Cairo Trilogy finally presented in one volume instead of the three separate books that it was previously issued as......this single volume will really allow the reader to appreciate the scope and continuity of this epic about the struggles of a country and a family, tracing the struggle of each toward independence and in the context of a rapidly changing political and social environment.

All of that said.....let me encourage you to read this wonderful book, which is so beautifully written, a story that pulls you in from the first page and captures your imagination. I always through Tolstoy was my favorite author in terms of character development.....but it's clear to me that Mahfouz is equally talented in rendering characters that seem as real as friends.

I cannot wait to read more by this important author!

30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Writing the Egyptian Life, November 25, 2005

By 

Afony - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street (Everyman's Library) (Hardcover)

This is probably the best novel written in the Arab world . Writers who tried to mimic it later on like El Aswany in "The Yacoubian Building" were cheap, inexpressive and failed.

Mahfouz offers a profound exploration of his characters; their struggles, inconsistencies, turbulent thoughts and actions. Desire can force them to act against their will and conviction. Their weaknesses compel them to act tyrannical under a vague definition of tradition. And the hardships they face change them beyond their comprehension forcing them into abodes of disturbed philosophical thought. The novel is perfectly interrelated marking the beginning, end, and evolution of each character, place or event mentioned.

The book starts by recounting the mature and established life of Ahmed Abd El Jawad and his wife Amina. He is a tyrannical patriarch, exerting full domination over his family, drawing strict restrictions over their lives while enjoying a sexually corrupt life on his own in prostitute houses.

Until the last pages of the first book the Abd El Jawad family is only suffering from domestic problems that stem from the casual daily life, like Khadija's fear of spinisterhood due to her ugly nose, Fahmy's political life and his love to his neighbour, Mariam,Abd El Jawad's cruelty and compassion to Amina etc... However towards the end, in the last few pages the family is stricken by its first major tragedy: Fahmy's death. This tragedy had major everlasting implications which changed their lives forever.

The second novel marks the eventual changes that occurred to the family. The father's tyrannical image is diminished gradually. Kamal's friends are members of the educated elite society. He falls madly in love with his best friend's sister. His platonic adoration reminded me of Florentino Ariza in "Love in the Time of Cholera". They both almost worshipped their beloved who belonged to an upper middle class and ignored them. The description of the lovers' feelings at the wedding night is also highly parallel. Kamal's personality was formulated by two major incidences that took place in his life: his failure in love and his brother's death. His ideological confusion and abnormal life and behavior stemmed from them.

In El Sokariya the old Abd El Jawad hierarchy entirely falls apart and each of the grand-children formulates his own life. It reflects the political segmentation, ideological changes and the corruption of the time.

"Time" as a theme is wonderfully discussed in the Cairo trilogy. Former centers of authority lose their respect gradually and become objects of humiliation and disintegration. Kamal carries his father like a child in the last day of his life, participates in Aida's humble funeral and chooses not to marry her sister. She who used to be once adored and unreachable. The last part is particularly interesting when Yassin goes to buy things for his daughter's upcoming baby and a black tie for his stepmother's upcoming funeral.

Politics also forms an integral role in the novel and it goes through the change process as much as anything. At the beginning Fahmy dies as a Wafdist, and by time the Wafd becomes less popular and Khadija's sons are imprisoned for the new sparkling political currents: the Muslim Brotherhood and Communism.

Ahmed Shawkat marks at the end that an individual is obliged to two kinds of responsibilities: his responsibility towards his family and his political and ideological responsibility towards his country.

Kamal accepts his advice and plans to think about the truth behind it.

A perfect picture of the Egyptian life at that time and the general condition of human beings immersed in a social atmosphere.