You are in for a treat.
From Amazon:
"A
renowned Nobel Prize-winning novelist refashions the classic tales of
Scheherazade in his own imaginative, spellbinding style. Here are genies and
flying carpets, Aladdin and Sinbad, Ali Baba, and many other familiar stories,
made new by the magical pen of the acknowledged dean of Arabic letters."
"Mahfouz is compared to Proust, Camus, Salinger, and an
introspective Hemingway,
and justifiably so. Hailed as the "widest-read Arab writer
currently published in the
U.S.," Mahfouz has certainly wielded his own influence
among international readers
since the Prize"
"Naguib
Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A
student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimaginings of
ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and
culture. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 33 novels,
13 short story anthologies, numerous plays, and 30 screenplays. Of his many
works, most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk
(1956), Palace of Desire (1957), and Sugar Street (1957), which
focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In
1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in Arabic
to do so. He died in August 2006."
Side bar tidbit: The 1995 movie, Midaq Alley, with Selma Hayek and Ernesto Gomez Cruz was based upon Mahfouz's novel, but located in Mexico City instead of Cairo.
