Miramar - Naguib Mahfouz

This highly charged fable set in Alexandria, Egypt, in the late 1960s, centers on theguests ofthe Pension Miramar as they compete for the attention of theyoung servant Zohra. Zohra is a beautifulpeasant girl who fled her family to escape an arranged marriage.She becomes the focus of jealousies and conflicts among the Miramar's residents, whoinclude an assortment of radicals and aristocrats flounderingin the wake of the Egyptian revolution. It becomes clear that the uneducated but strong-willed Zohra is the only one among them who knows what she wants.Asthe situation spirals toward violence and tragedy, the same sequence of eventsis retold from the perspective offour differentresidents, in the manner of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon,weaving a nuanced portrait ofthe intricacies of post-revolutionary Egyptian life.