The thief and the dogs [Paperback]

Naguibe Mahfouz (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: American U. In Cairo Press; 5th edition (1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385269331
• ISBN-13: 978-0385269339
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,480,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Mixture, July 28, 2003

By 

Okla Elliott (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Thief and the Dogs (Paperback)

This novel, by one of the world's premier fiction writers (Nobel Prize, 1988), is an interesting combination of Western and Middle-Eastern traditions. The prose style is a mixture of Camus' "The Stranger", Hesse's "Siddartha", and Graham Greene's "A Burnt-Out Case". There is a hard-boiled aspect that reminds the reader of Graham Greene's best "entertainments" and a philosophical strand similar to the French existentialists. Mix in a little Sufist wisdom and Egyptian scenery, and you've got a rather interesting literary mixture.

I advise any fan of world literature to give it a try. It's short and fast-paced, so the time investment will only be a day or two.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge is Bitter, October 30, 2004

By 

Gail Moore "avid reader" (vancouver canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Thief and the Dogs (Paperback)

First published in Egypt during the sixties, another great novella from Naguib Mahfouz, this one a riveting page turner narrated as a streaming flow of consciousness from a criminal mind.

The story opens with Said Mahran, just released after years in prison, burning up with hatred and obsessed with the idea of revenge on his ex-wife Nabawiyya and her new husband and his old friend Ilish. When he sees the success of one of his old cronies, Rauf Ilwan, he hates him too and desires vengeance. He seems driven by circumstance, yet later when he is given opportunities to change, he does not take them, knows only how to be a thief and nothing else. He is unable to change, blaming everyone except himself for his problems and soon seeks out "Tarzan" and his sleazy club out in the dark of the desert, drawn back into the criminal underworld.

A psychological study of someone bent on self-destruction.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very dry read, November 29, 2002

By 

M. A. ZAIDI "Ali Zaidi" (Karachi; Pakistan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The thief and the dogs (Paperback)

In The Thief and the Dogs; Naguib Mahfouz explores some of the disappointments in the failure of the revolution to bring real change. His characters live in a world rich in emotional and political colour. Anyone can identify with their dilemmas, their passions and their frustrations. The Thief and the Dogs deals with the experience of Said Mahran, a burglar and smalltime political activist who goes to jail before the revolution in 1952 and emerges four years later to find the world he used to know has completely changed. Both in personal and political terms Said feels betrayed: his wife has married his old sidekick Ilish, and his former political mentor Ra'uf has given up his student radicalism for a comfortable job with a newspaper.