Maḥfūẓ, Najīb 1911-2006

Palace walk by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
32 editions published between 1956 and 2011 in English and Undetermined and held by 2,876 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
The engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900's. Arabic title: Bayn al-Qasrayn. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature

Palace of desire by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
34 editions published between 1990 and 2011 in English and held by 2,246 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Continuing the story of al-Sayyid Ahmad and his family, this is a fascinating look at Egypt in the 1920s. Increased personal freedoms mix tenuously with traditions of family control, as two of Ahmad's sons court alluring women. Sequel to "Palace walk" and second story in "The Cairo trilogy."

Midaq Alley by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
64 editions published between 1966 and 2011 in English and Undetermined and held by 2,172 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Never has Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than in this outstanding novel, first published in Arabic in 1947. One of his most popular books (and considered by many to be one of his best), Midaq Alley centers around the residents of one of the teeming back alleys of Cairo

Sugar Street by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
25 editions published between 1957 and 2011 in English and held by 2,039 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Story of the family of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad moving into the middle of the twentieth century while the seeds of contemporary Egypt are sown

Arabian nights and days by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
25 editions published between 1995 and 2009 in English and held by 1,541 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Seventeen tales based on the classic, The Thousand and One Nights, but full of modern messages. In recounting his adventures, Sinbad-the-Sailor observes it is wrong to be a prisoner of tradition. The book's Egyptian author was recently the object of an assassination attempt by fundamentalists

Children of the alley by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
15 editions published between 1996 and 2011 in English and held by 1,320 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
The tale of a Mafia-like don in Egypt. He lives in a mansion in Cairo, uphill at the end of an alley whose inhabitants he exploits. He is the patriarch of a large family whose wealth comes from dealing in drugs and various protection rackets. While family members jockey for power, the people below live in squalor, dreaming of the revolutionary heroes their poverty produced. An expose of injustice in Egypt by a Nobel Prize winner and author of 30 novels

The harafish by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
23 editions published between 1977 and 2011 in English and Arabic and held by 1,313 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Ashur al-Nagi grows from humble origins to become a great leader among the working class people of his alley, but the following generations of his family slip further and further into decadence and decline

Miramar by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
107 editions published between 1967 and 2010 in 13 languages and held by 1,249 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
Pension Miramar engages a fellaha (a young peasant woman), who ran away from her village to avoid a forced marriage. She becomes the centre point of the attention of all the pension's inhabitants, because of her simplicity and natural beauty, but also for her ambition to get out of her traditional role of maid without education. The fellaha's battle to escape her humble fortune is mingled with her emotional love life and the more or less violent advances of some residents. The evolving story is told from (here) four different angles (persons), revealing slowly the real motives behind the different clashes. This novel contains some typical Mahfouz characters, like the career man, the wealthy playboy or the impostor ('employed by one master, serving secretly another'). Some themes are also familiar: 'If you have power, you have everything', or 'Everyone else around us behaves as if they didn't believe in God's existence'. The novel is also a reflection on the failure of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952: 'But was there an alternative? Only the Communists or the Muslim Brotherhood.'

The thief and the dogs by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
26 editions published between 1984 and 2011 in English and Arabic and held by 1,238 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
When Said Mahran is released from prison, he finds that he has been betrayed emotionally, physically, and intellectually. In his confusion, he strikes back with reckless abandon and destroys himself

The beginning and the end by Najīb Maḥfūẓ ( Book )
24 editions published between 1985 and 2011 in English and held by 1,168 WorldCat member libraries worldwide
With this realistic 1949 novel, Najib Mahfouz reveals to Western readers the woes of a petit bourgeois family thrust into poverty in WW II Cairo. The Kamels' private battles, relayed here in engrossing detail, are a microcosm of the Egyptian nation's birth pangs in gaining independence. When their father dies, age-old conventions crumble--one social-climbing son reneges on a betrothal; drugs and illicit sex numb the grief of two self-hating siblings. Redolent of a culture verging on modernity, the work illumines courting rituals, weddings, funerals, food, dress, interior decor and and entertainment. According to Mahfouz, the plight of Egyptian women in the 1940s was complex. The widow Samira is respected, wise and controlling; her daughter Nefisa's physical ugliness is a virtual death sentence, and her skill at needlework a source of embarrassment, not pride