Anchor proudly presents a new omnibus volume of three novels--previously published separately by Anchor--by Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Assembled here is a collection of Mahfouz's artful meditations on the vicissitudes of post-Revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique, together they render a rich, nuanced, and universally resonant vision of modern life in the Middle East. The Beggar is a complex tale of alienation and despair. In the aftermath of Nasser's revolution, a man sacrifices his work and family to a series of illicit love affairs. Released from jail in post-Revolutionary times, the hero ofThe Thief and the Dogs blames an unjust society for his ill fortune, eventually bringing himself to destruction. Autumn Quail is a tale of moral responsibility, isolation, and political downfall about a corrupt bureaucrat who is one of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 revolution in Egypt.

Naguib Mahfouz's haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid pychological portrait of an anguished man with the suspense and rapid pace of a detective story. After four years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married to each other and are keeping his six-year-old daughter from him. But in the most bitter betrayal, his mentor, Rauf Ilwan, once a firebrand revolutionary who convinced Said that stealing from the rich in a unjust society is an act of justice, is now himself a rich man, a respected newspaper editor who wants nothing to do with the disgraced Said. As Said's wild attempts to achieve his idea of justice badly misfire, he becomes a hunted man so driven by hatred that he can only recognize too late his last chance at redemption.

A complex tale of alienation and despair. Unable to achieve psychological renewal in the aftermath of Nasser's revolution, a man sacrifices his work and family to a series of illicit love affairs that intensify his feelings of estrangement. A passionate outcry against irrelevance.

Known and loved throughout Egypt as a work that celebrates the national character, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s Thebes at War tells of a high point in Egyptian history–ancient Egypt’s defeat of Asiatic foreigners who had dominated northern Egypt for two hundred years. With a visit from a court official and a provocative insult, the southern pharaoh’s long simmering resentment boils over, leading him to commit himself and his heirs to an epic struggle for the throne. Filled with the grand clash of armies, staggering defeats, daring escapes, and glorious victories, and written at a time when Egypt was again under the sway of foreign powers, Thebes at War is a resounding call to remember Egypt’s long and noble history.

Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz mines the riches of his homeland’s ancient past in Rhadopis of Nubia, an unforgettable love story set against the high politics of Egypt’s Sixth Dynasty. While the ravishing courtesan Rhadopis is bathing, a falcon lifts one of her golden sandals and drops it into the lap of the Pharaoh Merenra II. Upon hearing Rhadopis described as “beauty itself,” the young pharaoh decides to return Rhadopis’s sandal himself. When the two meet, they are immediately seized by a passion far stronger than their ability to resist. Thus begins a love affair that makes them the envy of Egyptian society. But blinded by their love and the extravagant attentions they lavish on each other, they ignore the growing resentment of the world around them in this extraordinary tale of star-crossed love.

At the center of Khufu’s Wisdom, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s majestic first novel, is the legendary Fourth Dynasty monarch Khufu (Cheops), for whom the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. When a seer prophesies the end of Khufu’s dynasty and the ascension to the throne of Djedefra, son of the High Priest of Ra, the pharaoh must battle to preserve his legacy against the will of the Fates. But in the face of the inexorable attraction between Djedefra and Princess Meresankh, Khufu’s beautiful daughter, Khufu must consider not only his personal ambition and the opposing decree of the heavens, but also how the wisdom he prides himself on as a ruler will guide him in determining the fate of his daughter’s heart. Translated by Raymond Stock

In this provocative and dreamy parable, a young man disillusioned by the corruption of his homeland sets out on a quest to find Gebel, the land of perfection, from which no one has ever returned. On his way, Ibn Fattouma passes through a series of very different lands--realms where the moon is worshipped, where marriage does not exist, where kings are treated like gods, and where freedom, toleration, and justice are alternately held as the highest goods. All of these places, however, are inevitably marred by the specter of war, and Ibn Fattouma finds himself continually driven onward, ever seeking. Like the protagonists of A Pilgrim's Progress and Gulliver's Travels, Naguib Mahfouz's hero travels not through any recognizable historical landscape, but through timeless aspects of human possibility.

In the wake of the 1952 Revolution, Egypt’s future Nobel laureate in literature devoted himself exclusively to writing for film. The Aesthetic of Revolution in the Film and Literature of Naguib Mahfouz is the first full-length study in English to examine this critical period in the author’s career and to contextualize it within the scope of post-revolutionary Egyptian politics and culture. Before returning to literature in 1959 with his post-revolutionary masterpiece Children of the Alley, Mahfouz wrote or co-wrote some twenty odd scripts, many of them among the most successful in Egyptian history. He did so at a time when film was the country’s second largest export commodity after cotton and the domestic film industry in Egypt the fourth largest in the world. Artistically, his screenplays channeled the ideology of the revolution, often raising themes of oppression and liberation, and almost always within a storyline of criminal transgression. But as he discussed in later articles and interviews, the capacity for film to enumerate the flow of life—through montage, jump cuts, lighting, and close ups—helped him to develop a darker, faster, and more complex vision of society. This technological revolution was followed by a literary one in the 1960s, a time when Mahfouz would generate through a series of short, trenchant, and often comedic novellas, a deeply measured meditation on the experience of collective upheaval and the interpersonal impact of political transformation.

A new volume of three novels–previously published separately by Anchor–by Naguib Mahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Together with The Beggar, The Thief and The Dogs, and Autumn Quail (published by Anchor in December 2000), these novels represent a comprehensive collection of Mahfouz’s artful meditations on post-revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique, they render a nuanced and universally resonant vision of modern life in the Middle East. Respected Sir, “a latter-day Bleak House in Arabic” (The New York Times), revisits a familiar theme–vaulting ambition–in a powerful and religious metaphor. Wedding Song, “one of Mahfouz’s most enjoyable works” (The Chicago Tribune), is a psychological drama, focusing on how four very different kinds of minds apprehend and reckon with the realities that surround them. The Search is a powerful, lurid, and compelling story of lust, greed, and murder.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, Naguib Mahfouz is perhaps the best-known living Arab writer. His books have had great success in this country, particularly The Cairo Trilogy. Fans of the famed trilogy will be delighted with The Harafish, an epic novel that chronicles the dramatic history of the al-Nagi family -- a family that moves, over many generations, from the height of power and glory to the depths of decadence and decay. The Harafish begins with the tale of Ashur al-Nagi, a man who grows from humble beginnings to become a great leader, a legend among his people. Generation after generation, however, Ashur's descendants grow further from his legendary example. They lose touch with their origins as they amass and then squander large fortunes, marry prostitutes when they marry at all, and develop rivalries that end in death. The community's upper class keeps a watchful eye on the descendants of al-Nagi for fear of losing their privileges, but they find no threat of another such as Ashur. Not, that is, until the al-Nagi who, like his noble ancestor, finds his power once again from among The Harafish, or the common people. Through the strength of their numbers and their passion, the glory of the name of al-Nagi is restored. "Of all [Mahfouz's] experiments in recent decades, this is the one which owes least to western inspiration and is probably the most successful. The Harafish, fluently translated by Catherine Cobham, makes accessible and engrossing reading." -- The Washington Post Book World.