Midaq Alley

Widely acclaimed asNaguib Mahfouz's best novel,Midaq Alley brings to lifeone of the hustling, teeming back alleysof Cairoin the 1940s. From Zaita the cripple-maker to Kirsha the hedonistic cafe owner,from Abbas the barber who mistakes greed for love to Hamida who sells her soul to escape the alley, from waiters and widows to politicians, pimps, and poets, the inhabitants of Midaq Alleyvividly evoke Egypt's largestcity as it teeters on the brink of change. Never has Nobel Prize-winnerMahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than here, in his portrait ofone small streetas a microcosm of the world on the threshold of modernity.