Paperback, 498 pages
English language
Published July 15, 1990 by Anchor Books.
Palace Walk (Arabic title بين القصرين) is a novel by Nobel Prize winning Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz, and the first installment of Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. Originally published in 1956 with the title Bayn al-qasrayn, the book was then translated into English by William M. Hutchins and Olive Kenny, and then published by Doubleday (publisher) in 1990. The book's Arabic title translates into 'between two palaces'. The setting of the novel is Cairo around the time period of World War I. It begins in 1917, during World War I, and ends in 1919, the year of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. The novel is written in a social realist style and reflects the social and political setting of Egypt in during 1917 to 1919.
It isn't my concious intention to read trilogies, but here I am. Happily, I guess, this first novel is about 40% of the whole. It is an interesting and moving Cairo family epic beginning about the time of WWI (The family wishes that the English will be confounded by the Zeppelin.).
This is the story of an Egyptian family in the 1920's. Ruled by a tyrannical father who is pious and stern at home, but a womanizing rock star at night, they drink coffee and fret about their reputations, angry father/god and marital statuses.
I could not love the father no matter how I tried. Actually, I really only liked the little boy, Kamal and the oldest daughter, Kadija. I should like this book more than I did. I just could not shrug off the casual rape, seclusion of the woman, crazy double standards, etc.
However long it took me to read (it was hanging out on my nightstand for two months) and however many times I interrupted it to read something more accommodating to my cultural expectations, I give it two thumbs up for giving me a paradigm shifting, honest and beautifully written story about a time and place I …
This is the story of an Egyptian family in the 1920's. Ruled by a tyrannical father who is pious and stern at home, but a womanizing rock star at night, they drink coffee and fret about their reputations, angry father/god and marital statuses.
I could not love the father no matter how I tried. Actually, I really only liked the little boy, Kamal and the oldest daughter, Kadija. I should like this book more than I did. I just could not shrug off the casual rape, seclusion of the woman, crazy double standards, etc.
However long it took me to read (it was hanging out on my nightstand for two months) and however many times I interrupted it to read something more accommodating to my cultural expectations, I give it two thumbs up for giving me a paradigm shifting, honest and beautifully written story about a time and place I knew nothing about. The ending is a bit of a cliff hanger too, and hints at interesting future character developments....
