From the Publisher
Selected and translated by the distinguished scholar Denys Johnson-Daivies, these stories have all the celebrated and distinctive characters and qualities found in Mahfouz's novels: The denizens of the dark, narrow alleyways of Cairo, who struggle to survive the poverty; melancholy ruminations on death; experiments with the supernatural; and witty excursions into Cairene middle-class life.
Biography
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 33 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays, and 30 screenplays. Of his many works, most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk (1956), Palace of Desire (1957), and Sugar Street (1957), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in Arabic to do so. He died in August 2006.
Publishers Weekly
Much more concise and pointed than his discursive novels, Nobel Prize winner Mahfouz's short stories must rank with the finest anywhere. Variety is the keynote of these 20 fluently translated tales, which range from a Kafkaesque allegory of an apartment dweller's obsession with rodents (``The Norwegian Rat'') to the moving, passionately feminist ``The Answer Is No,'' about a teacher who chooses independence and self-respect over a marriage proposal from the tutor who raped her. Mahfouz's Cairo is bursting with countless tragedies, comic absurdities and hope. In ``The Ditch,'' a solitary civil servant takes up residence in his family's burial vault, already occupied by squatters. A genie's blessing turns into a nightmare of police repression in the supernatural title story. Dark parables, psychological realism, wisdom quests, political satire--Mahfouz is inobtrusive master of every mode. This volume is the first selection of his stories available in English. (June)
Library Journal
Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist and 1988 Nobel laureate, is here represented by a novel and a book of stories showing his concern with the past versus the present a la Proust. The Search tells of Saber, son of a whore in Alexandria who deserted his high-born father at the time of his birth. She tells him on her deathbed that he must try to find his father in Cairo as his sole refuge from a life of crime. In Cairo, Saber meets two women, Elham and Karima. Elham counsels patients, but he yields to the opportunism of Karima's request that he kill her landlord husband for his money. Too late, he learns that Karima has been using him and that Elham in fact represented the better side of his nature. The Time and the Place , which includes a commendable introduction by the translator, is a collection of stories published from 1962 to 1988. It details the life of Cairo residents as they try to survive poverty, brood over death, and endure outmoded tradition. In the title story, which contemplates the supernatural, the narrator offers subjective explanation for the history of a family that lived in an old house. ``The Empty Cafe'' is a superb evocation of the loneliness of old age. ``The Ditch'' details a middle-class family forced by housing shortages to move into their ancestral mausoleum. Mahfouz is a somber writer, but his subtle narrative technique and stately prose give one much to ponder. Both books are recommended.-- Kenneth Mintz, formerly with Bayonne P.L., N.J.
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The Time and the Place