Karnak Cafe by Naguib Mahfouz
In this gripping and suspenseful novella from the Egyptian Nobel Prize-winner, three young friends survive interrogation by the secret police, only to find their lives poisoned by suspicion, fear, and betrayal. At a Cairo caf in the 1960s, a legendary former belly dancer lovingly presides over a boisterous family of regulars, including a group of idealistic university students. One day, amid reports of a wave of arrests, three of the students disappear: the excitable Hilmi, his friend Ismail, and Ismail's beautiful girlfriend Zaynab. When they return months later, they are apparently unharmed and yet subtly and profoundly changed. It is only years later, after their lives have been further shattered, that the narrator pieces together the young people's horrific stories and learns how the government used them against one another. In a riveting final chapter, their torturer himself enters the Caf and sits among his former victims, claiming a right to join their society of the disillusioned. Now translated into English for the first time, Naguib Mahfouz's tale of the insidious effects of government-sanctioned torture and the suspension of rights and freedoms in a time of crisis is shockingly contemporary.Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was born in Gamaliya, a busy Cairo neighborhood. He penned approximately 40 novels, as well as hundreds of short stories and screenplays. In 1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Kay Heikkinen earned her PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University, where she initially developed an interest in Arabic history, language, and literature. She has taught medieval history and literature, as well as Islamic civilization, at the University of Chicago, where she presently teaches Arabic.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780307390455 |
| ISBN 10 | 0307390454 |
| Title | Karnak Cafe |
| Author | Naguib Mahfouz |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Random House USA Inc |
| Year published | 2008-12-02 |
| Number of pages | 112 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |