William M. Hutchins

Ibrahim al-Mazini was one of the great humorists and stylists of twentieth-century Arabic prose literature. Like an Egyptian James Thurber, he captured the foibles and triumphs of Cairo's middle classes of the 1930s and 1940s in exceptionally stylish prose. This collection gathers in one volume some of al-Mazini's best short fiction, including two novellas: Midu and His Accomplices and Ten Again. Midu is an engaging, well-liked army officer who assisted...

Continuing the story of al-Sayyid Ahmad and his family, this is a fascinating look at Egypt in the 1920s. Increased personal freedoms mix tenuously with traditions of family control, as two of Ahmad's sons court alluring women. Sequel to "Palace walk" and second story in "The Cairo trilogy."

This is is the third book in the Cairo trilogy. Sugar Street is the continuing saga of the Al Jawad family. It tells the story of the family of al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad moving into the middle of the twentieth century while the seeds of contemporary Egypt are sown.

"Naguib Mahfouz's trilogy of colonial Egypt is the story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain's occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century." "The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife Amina, his...

Both revolution and romance are at the heart of Return of the Spirit, first published in Arabic in 1933. The story of a patriotic young Egyptian and his extended family, ending with events surrounding the 1919 revolution -- for al-Hakim, a literal awakening of the Egyptian spirit -- the strong expression of nationalist solidarity in Return of the Spirit has particular resonance now. Admiration for the novel by the military entrepreneurs who replaced...

The celebrated, revolutionary novel from a pioneering Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim, now for the first time in Penguin Classics with a foreword by Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany. First published in Arabic in 1933, Egyptian playwright and novelist Tawfiq Al-Hakim's 'Return of the Spirit' follows a patriotic young Egyptian and his extended family as they grapple with the events leading up to the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Though often cited as an...