The Cairo Trilogy is a trilogy of novels written by Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz.
The three novels are, in order:
- Palace Walk (original Arabic title: Bein el-Qasrein, 1956)
- Palace of Desire (Qasr el-Shoaq, 1957)
- Sugar Street (El-Sukkareyya, 1957)
The books' titles are taken from actual streets in Cairo, the city of Mahfouz's childhood and youth.
The trilogy follows the life of the Cairene patriarch El-Sayyid Ahmad Abdel Gawad and his family across three generations, from 1919 – the Egyptian Revolution against the British colonizers – to the end of the Second World War in 1944. The three novels represent the three phases of the Cairene socio-political life, a panorama of Egypt, through the life of Abdel Gawad and his children and grandchildren. The first novel is named after a street where he, the protagonist, and his family live, the second is named after a street where his eldest son Yasin and his family live, whereas the third is named after a street where his daughter Khadijah and her family live. Kamal, the youngest son whom Mahfouz admits that he gives him some features of himself as they both have got a BA in philosophy from what is called nowadays the University of Cairo and have problems in seeing profound contradictions between the religious principles and scientific foundings in the west. Seen a child in the first novel, a university student in the second, and a teacher, not married, in the third, Kamal loses his faith in religion, in love, and in traditions and lives in the second and third novels as an outsider in his own society. He keeps searching for meaning of his life until the last scene that seems an imposed one by Mahfouz to give some air of hope. Then Kamal's attitude to life changes to the positive as he starts to see himself as 'idealistic' teacher, future husband and revolutionary man. Likewise Mahfouz sees the development of society has an important influence on the role of women in that society, so he represents the traditional ,obedient women who do not go to schools such as Amenia, Abdel Gawad's wife and her daughters in the first novel, women as students in the university such as Aida, Kamal's beloved, in the second novel, and women as students in the university, members of the Marxist party and editors of the journal of the party in the third novel.
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