The Quarter: Stories

by Naguib Mahfouz, Roger Allen (Translator), Elif Shafak (Foreword by)

Overview

Meet the people of Cairo’s Gamaliya quarter. There is Nabqa, son of Adam the waterseller who can only speak truths; the beautiful and talented Tawhida who does not age with time; Ali Zaidan, the gambler, late to love; and Boss Saqr who stashes his money above the bath. A neighbourhood of demons, dancing and sweet halva, the quarter keeps quiet vigil over the secrets of all who live there.

This collection by pre-eminent Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz was recently discovered among his old papers. Found with a slip of paper titled ‘for publishing 1994’, they are published here for the first time. Resplendent with Mahfouz’s delicate and poignant observations of everyday happenings, these lively stories take the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780863563751
Publisher:	Saqi Books
Publication date:	09/24/2019
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x (d)

About the Author

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was Egypt’s most eminent writer. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote thirty-four novels, thirteen short story anthologies, numerous plays and thirty screenplays. His works range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. A writer of incredible discipline, every day he wrote for one hour, smoked three cigarettes and walked by the Nile. In 1994 he was stabbed in the neck by extremists and was seriously wounded. The injury caused nerve damage that partly paralysed his right hand, preventing him from writing. Of his many works, his most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. Other notable works include The Children of Gebelawi, The Thief and The Dogs and Autumn Quail. Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, the first writer in Arabic to do so.


Roger Allen obtained his doctoral degree in modern Arabic literature from Oxford Universityin 1968, the first student to do so. He was Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania for forty-three years, Chair of the Department 2005–11, and President of MESA 2009–2010. His translations of Naguib Mahfouz’s novels include Mirrors, Autumn Quail, Karnak Café, Khan al-Khalili and One Hour Left, as well as the short story collection God’s World. He has also translated the seminal works of key contemporary authors such as Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Yusuf Idris, May Telmissany, Ahmad al-Tawfiq and Hanan al-Shaykh.


Elif Shafak is an international bestselling and award-winning novelist, and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. She is known as a women's rights, minority rights and LGBT rights advocate as well as an inspirational public intellectual and speaker. She has published 16 books, 10 of which are novels, which have been published in 48 languages. Shafak is a TED Global speaker, a member of Weforum Global Agenda Council on Creative Economy in Davos and a founding member of ECFR (European Council on Foreign Relations). She has been featured in and contributes to major newspapers and periodicals around the world, including the Financial Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Der Spiegel and La Repubblica. Shafak has taught at various universities in Turkey, the UK and the USA.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Elif Shafak
Introduction by Roger Allen
The Oven
Your Lot in Life
Pursuit
Son of the Quarter
The Scream
Namla’s Prophesy
Bad Luck
Shaikhun
The Arrow
The Whisper of the Stars
Our Father Igwa
The Storm
The End of Boss Saqr
Life is a Game
Nabqa in the Old Fort
Late Night Secret
The Prayer of Sheikh Qaf
Tawhida

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Naguib Mahfouz


‘The Arab world’s foremost novelist … Arabic has a rich tradition in poetry, but the novel was not a strong art form until Mahfouz made it accessible.’ New York Times


‘A towering literary figure, and the joyous chronicler of a turbulent Egyptian century … [Mahfouz] populated his works with a cast of memorably strong urban characters. … The result was a body of work that bore comparison with Balzac and Dickens. But Mahfouz also introduced his audience to a new way of seeing.’ The Economist


‘A master of both detailed realism and fabulous storytelling, the scope of his genius remains unjustly little-known to English readers’ The Guardian


‘Egypt’s greatest living writer … one of the world’s most humane literary figures. Like Émile Zola, Mahfouz chronicled the lives of the most ordinary of his countrymen: peasants, workers, housewives, shopkeepers, prostitutes. Like Fyodor Dostoyevsky, he set most of his novels in one beloved city – Cairo, in his case. Like his elders Taha Husayn and Tawfiq al-Hakim, he took on the role of national storyteller.’ The Nation


‘Mahfouz’s work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. The Nobel Prize acknowledges the universal significance of [his] fiction.’ Los Angeles Times


Praise for The Cairo Trilogy


‘A masterpiece’ The Times


‘Luminous … All the magic, mystery and suffering of Egypt in the 1920s are conveyed on a human scale.’ New York Times Book Review


‘It is Mahfouz’s wonderful ability to delineate human beings from their outer appearances which gives Palace Walk its universal appeal. I shall read it again and again’ The Guardian


‘Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy puts all contemporary writers in the shade. He is the Arab Tolstoy.’ Simon Sebag Montefiore


‘The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens.’ Newsweek


‘An engrossing work, whose author can take his place alongside any European master you care to name’ Sunday Times


‘A magnificent, Tolstoyan saga ... unmissable’ Cosmopolitan


‘The Cairo Trilogy extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it.’ Boston Globe


‘A grand novel of ideas … a marvellous read’ Washington Post


‘Mahfouz’s genius is not just that he shows us Egyptian colonial society in all its complexity; it is that he makes us look through the vision of his vivid characters and see people and ideas that no longer seem alien.’ Philadelphia Inquirer

From the Publisher