Naguib MAHFOUZ

The Cairo Trilogy

Palace Walk

Najīb Maḥfūẓ

Palace Walk is the first novel in Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent Cairo Trilogy, an epic family saga of colonial Egypt that is considered his masterwork. 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. 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. Translated by William Maynard Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny

A deep and powerful story with a brilliant translation.

Shidehdeishidi

Naguib Mahfouz

Palace Walk (Cairo Trilogy)

The first novel of Arabian literature that I've ever read, but definitely won't be the last.

It was so engaging. The characters and their emotional roller-coaster was elegantly described. And that surprising ending...!

Mahtab Sabet

The first book of the Cairo Trilogy.

The first novel of Arabian literature that I've ever read, but definitely won't be the last.

It was so engaging. The characters and their emotional roller-coaster was elegantly described. And that surprising ending...!

I'll start reading the second book soon!

Volume I of the masterful Cairo Trilogy. A national best-seller in both hardcover and paperback, it introduces the engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s.

The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 1

Vivian

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1988 was awarded to Naguib Mahfouz "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind."

I enjoyed Palace Walk more than I thought I would. We get to witness the daily life of an ultra-conservative Egyptian family during the time of WWI, from the tyrannical and hypocritical father to the pious and submissive mother, from the two daughters whose lives are bound to be shaped by their future marriages, and three sons destined for different life paths. Mahfouz's writing reads like a very fine hand-scroll painting (e.g. 清明上河图), as you slowly unroll the painting, vivid, detailed, and successive scenes reveal the lifestyles and activities of people from various walks of life, and offer a glimpse into the mentality and culture of Egyptian society in that era. Intriguing and fascinating. Will continue with the next two books in the trilogy.

Palace Walk The Cairo Trilogy

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