Palace Walk

author
Naguib Mahfouz

the spiel
Considered one of the great masterpieces of Arabic literature from the twentieth century, Palace Walk is the first book in Mahfouz's acclaimed Cairo Trilogy. An engrossing family saga, The Cairo Trilogy follows the Abd al-Jawad family through their lives in Cairo. Palace Walk chronicles a single year, 1919. Through one family, Mahfouz aims to portray both traditonal Muslim family structures in Cairo before WWI, and the shifting sands of modernization as it creeps slowly into family dynamics. As they grow into adulthood, each of Ahmad and Amina's five children challenge some aspect of family tradition, moving in one way or another, away from their parents example. The novel is almost as much Mahfouz's love affair with Cairo as it is about any particular cast of characters—but in many ways, this is what makes Palace Walk shine.

other people who liked this book (or at least say they did)
Whoever awarded him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1988, because he won it.

gives joyce carol oates a run for her money
This guy's written over forty novels, thirty screenplays, and a whole pile of plays. Here's a taste:
Whisper of Madness
Mockery of the Fates
Rhadopis of Nubia
Modern Cairo
Khan al-Khalili
Midaq Alley
The Mirage
The Beginning and The End
The Cairo Trilogy:
*Palace Walk
*Palace of Desire
*Sugar Street
Children of Gebelawi
The Thief and the Dogs
Quail and Autumn
The Search
The Beggar
Chatting on the Nile
Miramar
Mirrors
al-Karnak
Respected Sir
The Harafish
Love and the Veil
Arabian Nights and Days
Weddding Song
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
Fountain and Tomb
The Time and the Place
Adrift on the Nile
Echoes From an Autobiography
Arabian Days and Nights
Children of the Alley
Akhenaten
The Day the Leader Was Killed
The Beggar, The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail
Respected Sir, Wedding Song, The Search
Voices from the Other World
Rhadopis of Nubia
Thebes At War
Khufu's Wisdom
The Seventh Heaven