Palace Walk

بين القصرين · Bayn al-Qasrayn · published 1956 · ISBN 9780385264662

Naguib Mahfouz — Naguib Mahfouz (1911 – 2006) — Egypt, writing in Arabic. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.

“Who, through works rich in nuance — now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous — has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind.” — The Nobel Committee citation

About Naguib Mahfouz

Egyptian novelist and the first writer in Arabic to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He raised the Arabic novel to the level of modern art, recording the soul of Cairo's alleyways through the upheavals of the twentieth century.

How it came to be

Published in 1956, this is the first volume of the celebrated Cairo Trilogy — a vast fresco of three generations of one Egyptian family. It was this trilogy that carried Mahfouz to the Nobel Prize in 1988, the first ever awarded to a writer working in Arabic.

What Palace Walk is about

Cairo in the last years of the First World War: the patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad, severe and hypocritical at home yet dashing and free-living in the streets, governs his wife and children through fear. When the wave of the 1919 revolution against British rule arrives, the walls of the household begin to crack along with a whole society in transformation.

Analysis & legacy

Palace Walk does for the Arabic novel what Balzac and Tolstoy once did for Europe: it turns a single family into a mirror of an entire nation. The patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad is harsh and pious at home yet indulgent in the streets, ruling his wife and children through fear — until the 1919 revolution against British rule sweeps in and walls that seemed impregnable begin to crack along with the whole social order. Mahfouz patiently lets us live alongside this family through every meal and prayer, so that when tragedy strikes it wounds us as if it were our own kin. The opening volume of the Cairo Trilogy, it made him the first Arabic novelist to win the Nobel Prize, in 1988.

Themes: Family & patriarchy · Cairo · Tradition & modernity · 1919 Revolution · Women & freedom

Rating: 4/5 from 2 ratings (Open Library).

What critics say

• A tale told with great affection, humor, and sensitivity, in a style that in this translation is always accessible and elegant. — The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times
• Rich in psychological insight and cultural observation. . . . A majestic and capacious accomplishment. — The Boston Globe, The Boston Globe
• The first Arabic writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature; the Cairo Trilogy is regarded as the summit of Arabic realist fiction. — Swedish Academy, Nobel 1988

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