Palace Walk
The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 1
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4.3 • 31 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
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.
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Set in Cairo around the end of World War I, as Egypt, a British protectorate, clamors for independence, 1988 Nobel Prize-winner Mahfouz's epic family drama explores deep fissures in the patriarchal structure of one household. Prosperous merchant Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, a tyrant at home, roams Cairo's tawdry entertainment district by night seeking illicit pleasures. His submissive wife Amina is chained to the house; he throws her out on the street after she commits the sin of going outdoors for a walk. His two daughters constantly bicker, and his three sons are beyond his control: Yasin commits sexual assaults on servants; Fahmy becomes an activist in the nationalist movement, while Kamal befriends British soldiers. The first volume in Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy (1956-57), this dense novel charts an Egypt lurching into the modern age. Mahfouz is a master at building up dramatic scenes and at portraying complex characters in depth.
