The Cairo Trilogy was my first encounter with Naguib Mahfouz, the only Egyptian writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize (1988). The three books were originally published in quick succession, with Palace Walk released in 1956, and both Palace of Desire and Sugar Street in 1957.
The trilogy follows a multi-generation family through roughly 50 tumultuous years of Egyptian life, and the insights of them and their communities–the anger against British occupation, the complex reaction to WWII, the shape of the various Egyptian nationalist and liberation movements, all painted against everyday life of Cairo–are the most compelling parts of the novels.
It is especially poignant now, as the novels cover the initial rise of the Islamic conservativism that now dominates most American’s perceptions of Arab countries, but the books present a complex tapestry, where people pray at home and go to prayers at the Mosque and drink and cavort and maintain both openly secret and deeply repressed affairs of the heart and body. Even in English translation, Mahfouz’ ability to capture the complexity of everyday life shines through: Islam is everywhere in the books, but belief varies considerably, a context that can be quite challenging to convey.
The books speed up as you go: Palace Walk moves at a very slow pace, immersing the reader in the daily rhythms of the life of a well to do Cairo household, and especially on the impacts of its dominant patriarch on the rest of the family. By the time Sugar Street rolls around, years are covered in sentences, and we have moved on to later generations, although the long shadow of the original patriarch still falls over the lives of the characters.
If you’re a fan of historical fiction with an interest in the first half of the 20th century, it’s recommended. If you have any interest Egypt and the Islamic Middle East, even more so.