Palace Walk

The first volume of the Cairo Trilogy follows the al-Jawad family through the upheavals of early twentieth-century Egypt. Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize, created a family saga that rivals anything by Tolstoy or Thomas Mann.

Why Start Here

Palace Walk is the ideal entry point to Middle Eastern literature because it is simultaneously specific and universal. The patriarch Ahmad Abd al-Jawad rules his household with an iron hand by day and drinks and carouses by night. His wife has not left the house in years. His children are beginning to stir against the old order, just as Egypt itself stirs against British occupation.

Mahfouz writes with the detailed realism of a nineteenth-century European novelist, but the world he depicts is purely Egyptian: the streets of Cairo, the rhythms of Ramadan, the tension between religious duty and personal desire. The novel makes no concessions to Western readers, and that is precisely its power. You learn this world by living in it, page by page.

What to Expect

A long, immersive family saga. The prose is measured and richly detailed. Multiple characters and storylines weave together. First of a trilogy, but deeply satisfying on its own. Some knowledge of Egyptian history helps but is not required.