Mahfouz's last novel, an evocative depiction of life in Egypt in the twentieth century as told through the lives of a group of friends, is now available in paperback for the first time
On a school playground in the stylish Cairo suburb of Abbasiya, five young boys become friends for life, making a nearby caf茅, Qushtumur, their favorite gathering spot forever. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian, and classically Mahfouzian, quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place.
In a seamless stream of personal triumphs and tragedies, their lives play out against the backdrop of two world wars, the 1952 Free Officers coup, the defeat of 1967 and the redemption of 1973, the assassination of a president, and the simmering uncertainties of the transitional 1980s. But as their nation grows and their neighborhood turns from the green, villa-studded paradise of their youth to a dense urban desert of looming towers, they still find refuge in the one enduring landmark in their ever-fading the humble coffeehouse called Qushtumur.
The Coffeehouse is a powerful and timeless novel of loss and memory from one of Egypt's most celebrated literary masters.
Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic author profile: ) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.
Simplicity is the secret of the beauty; when the work is easy and fluent you get amalgamated easily and feel sad when u finish it, of course it was an interesting book. Mahfouz is the king of eloquent Arabic language without any complexity or sophistication. He has narrated a traditional story about some close friends, a friendship story that when you read it you would like to live in an analogous one. I always see Mahfouz as the best one in describing the Egyptian society. He presented in this short novel different political and social circumstances of nearly 50 years. Friendship bond that could resist their different tendencies, friendship contained different interests, believes and characters which I pray that I may have one like it