Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales

Description

Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz reaches back millennia to his homeland's majestic past in this enchanting collection of early tales that brings the world of ancient Egypt face to face with our own times. From the Predynastic Period, where a cabal of entrenched rulers banish virtue in jealous defense of their status, to the Fifth Dynasty, where a Pharaoh returns from an extended leave to find that only his dog has remained loyal, to the twentieth century, where a mummy from the Eighteenth Dynasty awakens in fury to reproach a modern Egyptian nobleman for his arrogance, these five stories conduct timeless truths over the course of thousands of years. Summoning the power and mystery of a legendary civilization, they examplify the artistry that has made Mahfouz among the most revered writers in world literature. Translated by Raymond Stock

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. His nearly forty novels and hundreds of short stories range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. 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 the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.

"Mahfouz is the single most important writer in modern Arabic literature." -Newsday "The incredible variety of Mahfouz's writings continues to dazzle our eyes." -The Washington Post "Mahfouz's characters blaze with intensity, his Egypt pulsates with unresolved tensions." -The Atlanta Constitution