The harafish - Naguib Mahfouz

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.