This book is magnificent. I was not expecting, from a translation, to be pulled in so completely, but I have not been able to put it down for three days. It is the story of a Muslim family ruled by a strict father who cloisters the women. It is centered around the heart of the household- the mother - but the author carefully and lovingly brings each character to life. For me, someone who is intrigued by the mystery of this way of life, it is a "lifting of the veil" into their turbulent emotions, joys, pains, desires, and dramas of everyday life, the passage of time among one family, and how different generations interpret traditions.

قراءة هذه الثلاثية كانت اشبه بسماع قصة مشوقة عابرة من صديقة، أعطيها كل اهتمامي في وقتها واتسلى بسماعها ولا أفكر فيها بعدها ابدًا. يستثنى من ذلك أغلب الجزء الثالث، حيث أراه وجِدَ ليختم القصة فحسب، لا يضيف شيئًا ولا يملك تأثيرًا.
أعتقد أنَّه من المؤسف أننا لم نرى القصة من أعيُّن أيّ من نساء القصة، على الرّغم من أنَّ قصصهم الخاصة مثيرة للاهتمام، وكان ذلك ليؤثر إيجابًا في القصة، وعمومًا لا أعرف إن كان ذلك يقول شيئًا عن الكاتب أو لا، إلّا أنني أحيانًا أتساءل ما إذا كانت بعض الأفكار الذكورية ليست أفكارًا خارجة عنه إطاره.
قراءة هذا الكتاب تجربة مختلفة وجريئة وبعيدة تمامًا عن منطقة راحتي، ليست سيئة، لكنها لم تضف إليّ أيّ شيء، ولا أعتقد أني قد أخسر شيئًا ما لم أقرأها. بس يعني، بإمكاني الآن أضيف "قراءة ثلاثية محفوظ" للسيرة الذاتية وأخبر العالم عن هالانجاز، ما هي فوق الالف صفحة من أفكار وتصرفات وحيوات ذكوريين، أكيد بستهلك هالانجاز أيما استهلاك.

سيبقى محفوظ الأقرب بين الروائيين إلى الكمال
وستبقى ثلاثية القاهرة واحدة من أكمل وأنضج وأحكم الروايات المسلسلة

In a way this is a deeply familiar story despite it's colonial Egyptian setting. If you've ever sniffed a nineteenth century family saga, particularly one that stretched into the twentieth century flavoured by the author's progress from boy to writer then you know, emotionally, what to expect, overbearing hypocritical patriarch, meek housebound wife, youngest son en-route via teaching to become an author, add mid novel stone throwing and protests at occupying British, stir occasionally on a low heat...

Perhaps more kindly we might observe that unfortunately or conveniently, despite differences of religion, climate and tradition, people and interpersonal relationships don't actually vary that much. So it is with this family saga set in turn of the 19th into the 20th century Cairo in a lower middle class household.

Most clearly I remember the scene where the family patriarch, upright, moral and dignified to his own family, 'marries' a prostitute and has a raucous party with his cronies. Part of this relationship is observed by his youngest son, if I remember correctly. The greatly the surface stress on dignity and piety, the greater the self indulgent hedonism behind closed doors I suppose  Not that I dare suggest that the Archbishop of Canterbury can be found of an evening dancing naked while balancing a glass of champagne on his head, perhaps though when he was younger.

Wow. What a story. We began in 1919, when Ahmad al-Jawari was a middle aged husband and ended when his grandchildren had grown up. I started this trilogy in 2021, read book two in 2022 and finished the third and final chapter in 2023. I feel like standing up and applauding lol.

At the level of sheer storytelling, The Cairo Trilogy (comprised of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street) is remarkable in its depth and scope of chronicling various individuals over three generations in the al-Jawad family. For me, the most satisfying aspect of the three books is the cerebral insight in which Mahfouz investigates each major character throughout the successive generations. The result is a family saga immensely rich in its range of personalities. Readers feel as though they are experiencing emotions through a kaleidoscope. Mahfouz is astonishing with his ability to channel the intimate thoughts of each character in order to unveil their deepest secrets and trace the source of their actions and behavior. Moreover, Mahfouz penetrates the tantalizing matters of the heart. He gives us characters in their most human form. We see them experience pain and joy, hope and despair, and also the perils of love and loss.

The central figure spanning all three volumes is the imposing patriarch, Ahmad Abd al-Jawad. He dominates over his household with the authority of a tyrannical king. He presents himself as a man living up to the highest standards of religion and morality. Among his family by day, he acts like a man of stern principles and devout prayer. Yet his hypocrisy is dually noted early on in the narrative, as he is also a man of uninhibited indulgence. By night, he carouses, drinks, and engages in adultery. He represents Mahfouz's quintessential literary focus on allegory, which is prevalent throughout most of the trilogy. Al-Sayyid Ahmad embodies someone who thinks he is free to do anything he wants without consequence, while at the same time he forbids others from the same behavior. In other words, Ahmad portrays himself as everything he is not, just as the historical backdrop of the trilogy shows how the free reign of British colonialism to do whatever it wants is anything but free of guilt.

Palace Walk, volume 1 of the trilogy, shifts gears from a family saga to a historical drama when Mahfouz begins to highlight the forces and events surrounding the Egyptian revolution against the British occupation. With extraordinary realism and visceral affect, he brings to life the sights, sounds, and motives of the populace to confront the injustices of colonialism. He inserts the al-Jawad family into the center of this maelstrom. Of the five children of al-Sayyid Ahmad, it is the middle son, the idealist and erudite Fahmy, who falls victim to martyrdom, even as his father defies him not to pledge the rebellion of 1919. The oldest son, Yasin, is from Ahmad's first marriage, and he portrays the second generation figure whose misguidance perpetuates the same sins of debauchery as his father. Ahmad's two daughters are diametrical opposites both in appearance and demeanor. The older daughter, Khadjia, has unflattering features, yet she is full of energy and seemingly cursed with a flair for sarcasm. Her younger sister, Aisha, is a radiant blonde with a voice like a songbird, yet she is prone to reveries. The most compelling child is the youngest, Kamal. Prone to playfulness and lies, he is mischievous with inquiry about the world and fascinated with religious studies. The same as all the siblings, Kamal is terrified of his father. Then there is the matriarch, Amina, a paragon of nurturing and caring. She does for her family what any ideal mother would do, and yet she suffers the duality of pretending to turn a blind eye on her husband's transgressions. Palace Walk takes readers through the daily struggles and joys of the family up until the 1919 nationalist revolution in which Fahmy loses his life.

In volume 2, Palace of Desire, the saga of the al-Jawad family recommences in 1924 with the British reaching a rapprochement with the widely popular Wafd leader, Sa'd Zaghlul. In this second volume, the fate of the next generation plays out. After several affairs and scandals, Yasin attempts to find monogamy with his second wife Zaynab, but again he fails to do so. Although Aisha is the younger sister, she is wed off to Khalil Shawkat, and shortly thereafter her older sister Khadija follows suit by having her marriage arranged to Khalil's much older brother, Ibrahim. The children of both these couples are in their infancy as this novel proceeds, but the most compelling figure in volume 2 is Kamal, the youngest sibling of al-Sayyid Ahmad and Amina. Now seventeen, Kamal has passed his exams to earn his baccalaureate. Against the wishes of his father, he insists on pursuing philosophical truths and the search for meaning in an existential world. Kamal's disavowal of religion places him in conflict with his father, who pledges the fundamentalist tenets of Islam. As a free thinker catapulted into the field of modern science's quest for meaning and understanding, Kamal falls victim to despondency after he suffers from the agony of unrequited love. Palace of Desire focuses on Kamal's plight as the central figure of the second generation. His modernist vision of the world, with its reliance on science and reason, reflects the Wafd Party's nationalist ideology of governing the nation free from the constraints of Islam as a political system. When the second book ends with the passing of the leader Sa'd, one sees the parallel between the painful end of an era and the pain Kamal feels with his own lofty hopes for love shattering around him.

By volume 3, Sugar Street, it is now 1935, and the third generation has become the focal point. This generation is most aptly depicted through the two polarizing figures of Abd al-Muni'm and Ahmad, the two headstrong sons of Khadija and Ibrahim. Abd al Muni'm grafts himself to the fanaticism preached by Shaykh Ali al-Munufi, a religious zealot devoted to the budding philosophy that the Quran's teachings should be implemented as a political system and code, even in the modern world. As leader of the Muslim Brethren, al-Munufi ensnares vulnerable young minds such as Abd al-Muni'm during a time in Egypt's history when the country's political turmoil continues to consume everyday society. On the opposing side of these ideologies is Ahmad. He finds solace in following AdliKarim, the open-minded Editor-in-Chief of The New Man magazine. Karim views the Wafdists as the starting point of Egypt's national movement towards independence and democracy. He, however, believes the nation must go beyond developing social freedom. Ahmad latches onto Karim's ideas and supports the mission of The New Man to confront the fanatics, while at the same time promoting scientific mentality. Both brothers heed the patriotic call for revolution and independence, yet both see entirely different ways of achieving liberation from British rule. With a host of other family characters, friends, and acquaintances to supplement the differences of the brothers' philosophies, Mahfouz ultimately brings this grand trilogy to a summation during the government's mass crackdown on political activists on each side of the divide. The arrests of both Abd al Muni'm and Ahmad bring this monumental work to a close.

In its totality, Mahfouz uses the three novels of The Cairo Trilogy to chart Egypt's tumultuous history through the meditations of various family members with distinctively different perceptions on life. He achieves this by also exposing and confronting the ideologies of both repressive colonialism and radical Islam. What he creates in the process is a breathtaking work of vivacity and bustle. The trilogy is allegorical and literal in his depictions of the al-Jawad family as a microcosm for the subsequent historical eras that three generations of the family endure. With everything that Mahfouz accomplishes, what stands out most is how he offers us great insight into the hearts and minds of a vast array of characters. He reveals to us the essence of their souls so that we might seek to turn a mirror on ourselves and examine what it is in each of us that yearns for a better understanding of humanity and what it means to be human.

Having read the trilogy as a singular work, I believe in order to gain the full appreciation of the novels, it is important to read them together as one book. So much transpires and reading the books separately or out of sequence may prevent one from experiencing the significance Mahfouz assigns to certain characters in each generation. For example, the patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad is unyielding in his authority over his family at the beginning of volume 1. However, with his aging and with the influence of modernity on his beliefs, he is shown as capable of changing. What is uniquely notable is that his grandson Ahmad (one of the prominent figures of volume 3) clearly symbolizes tolerance and open-mindedness. To gain the full effect of this fascinating generational dichotomy, it requires an understanding of Ahmad the grandfather from volume 1. This type of symbolic contrast between characters occurs throughout the three novels, but without knowledge of what certain characters are like early in their lives, the effect of who they are in different volumes may not be as impactful.

This book is so good that not even a so-so translation detracts from it.

One of the best ever. Colonial Cairo....different families representing the changes taking place in Egyptian society....just brilliant. Ah yes, he also won the Nobel Prize for Literature....and well worth it.

ثلاثية القاهرة: بين القصرين 1956
قصر الشوق/ السكرية 1957
واحدة من أهم وأشهر الأعمال العربية لأديب نوبل الراحل نجيب محفوظ
الثلاثية التي رسمت الحياة في مصر منذ عام 1917 وحتى نهايات الحرب العالمية الثانية وذلك خلال ثلاثة أجيال
من عائلة سيد أحمد عبدالجواد وعلى مدار 1500 صفحة.
تبدأ القصة بداية هادئة بالست "أمينة" وهي تنتظر في الفجر عودة زوجها "أحمد عبدالجواد" في تصوير لخضوع واستكانة وسيطرة وخوف واحترام.
ويتوالى هذا الصباح ويبدأ نسيم الشخصيات بالظهور من خلال هيمنة الأب وخضوع الزوجة والأبناء والبنات.
ينصرف أحمد عبدالجواد إلى دكانه بالنحاسيين لتتجلى شخصية جديدة مرحة محبة للهو وينصرف ياسين وفهمي وكمال مودعيين البيت كل في طريقه
وتنطلق أمينة وخديجة وعائشة في ترتيب البيت
ثم تجتمع الأسرة بشكل مختلف تماما في مجلس القهوة ، وتظهر المشاحنات والمشاكسات والاراء المختلفة بين أفراد الأسرة
لتزداد تعقيد وحبكة الشخصيات المرسومة.
لعل ذاك النهار الأول في بين القصريين هو واحد من أجمل البدايات وأكثرها عبقرية.
يسلط محفوظ الضوء على بداية ثورة 19 والأسباب الدافعة لها وأبطال الحركات الوطنية مع تأثيره على المجتمع المصري الذي لن تراه إلا في عالم محفوظ الروائي، ذلك المجتمع المحتفظ بعاداته وتقاليده والبعيد عن التأثر بالحضارة الغربية.

وتظهر شخصية "كمال" ، الطفل الذي تربى على حكاوي أمه وكتب ياسين في بين القصريين ثم التأثير المجتمعي الواضح في قصر الشوق والسكرية والبعد الفلسفي في رمزية محفوظ.
ومع ظهور الأحفاد في السكرية تتجدد الدماء وتظهر المواضيع المختلفة كالتطرق للإخوان المسلمين في شخص عبدالمنعم والاشتراكية في شخص أخوه أحمد وحتى ظهور قضية المثلية الجنسية ولو من بعيد في شخص رضوان.

واحد من الأعمال الخالدة في الأدب العربي التي يجب أن تقرأ.

Forget about the Nobel Prize for a minute. This is not stuffy pretentious Capital L Literature. It's a potboiler family saga in the grand 19th century tradition. If you have ever complained that Trollope didn't write ENOUGH, then Naguib Mahfouz is your new best friend.

Oh ... And there's poignant irony, proustian characters, profound insights into human nature, the history of modern Egypt all wrapped up into one soaringly poetic masterpiece .... Yeah. Fine. Whatever.

The main point is that you'd better make sure to buy all three volumes in the trilogy up front, because once you crack page one you are not coming up for air until it's done, done, done. These books will take control of your life and make you forget to eat, sleep or breathe until you're finished with them. They really truly are that good.

"The Cairo Trilogy" by Naguib Mahfouz was an intriguing read that provided a glimpse into the cultural and historical context of Egypt. As someone who had more stereotypes and less knowledge about Egypt and Muslim culture in general, I found it interesting to explore them through the lens of a family living in Cairo from the early 20th century to the 1950s. Thanks to the dramatized narration of the audiobook, I felt transported to another time and place.

Overall, "The Cairo Trilogy" is a thought-provoking and important work that sheds light on a different cultural perspective. While I struggled with some of the values depicted in the novel, I appreciated the opportunity to broaden my understanding of the world and to see it from a new point of view. I highly recommend this novel to anyone interested in exploring a different time, place, and culture.

The first novel, Palace Walk, introduces the family of Ahmad Abd al-Jawad: his wife Amina, sons Yasin, Fahmy and Kamal, and daughters Khadija and Aisha. This family will be the center of all three novels as Mahfouz chronicles their experiences living within a Cairo neighborhood identified by the street, Palace Walk, home to the family. Prominent among the themes of the first novel is the freedom of the family (or lack of freedom) under the authoritarian rule of the father. Mahfouz slowly develops the relationships within the family and the novel builds upon events that epitomize the growth of each family member. Just as the middle son Fahmy excels in school he begins to seek freedom in the growth of nationalist fervor during the era of the Great War. Amina, who is present on the first page has the temerity to defy her husband and pays a price, yet demonstrates growth in stature within the family. Amina's life and personality is the lifeblood of the homelife of the family, bracketed by the scenes of the coffee hour and Amina on the roof overlooking the city. As the first novel ends we find the family's peace and structure threatened portending more change in the novels that follow.

The second novel of Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy is titled Palace of Desire. The family of Ahmad al-Jawad has expanded as the married daughters and son have children. Particularly touching and revelatory is a scene where Ahmad becomes the doting grandfather demonstrating a side of his character that we did not see in the first novel of the trilogy. We also see the permutations of love and desire on display as the family evolves through the maturation of the second generation. There is a particular focus on the development of Kamal, the youngest of the children, who has seen success in school and slowly leaves behind his youthful innocence as he develops into a thinker, a writer, and an admirer of the perfection of beauty as embodied in the young Aida Shaddad. His view of love is doomed to an unsuccessful search for perfection when the one he adores, Aida, rejects him and leaves Egypt with another. Kamal will eventually satisfy his bodily needs with girls from the brothel district while he lives an ascetic life of the philosophic writer and teacher. He also highlights one other theme of the novel with his popularization of western philosophy as Egyptian nationalism grows and the culture of Ahmad's family is buffeted by the new ideas. Perhaps the eldest son, Yasin, best represents the view of love as mere desire. Even in the first novel Yasin had demonstrated his inability to control his natural desire for women and this lack of control continues to complicate his life. Unlike his father, who could discreetly maintain his life with the singers of the night separately from his home life, Yasin blunders about, endangering both his home life and his career. Desire permeates this story even as the world of Ahmad, the father, slowly begins to lose the control that seemed to be his main characteristic as the trilogy began.

The novel Sugar Street ends Naguib Mahfouz's masterpiece bringing the story of Al-Sayyid Ahmad's family to a close. With the death of Al-Sayyid his wife Amina is all alone. In a moving chapter we hear her voice and see the world through her eyes as she feels more alone than ever before. The house and the coffee hour are no longer the same. But the focus has turned to the grandchildren, particularly Ahmad and al-Muni'm, sons of Khadija. Each is seeking new directions, mirroring the political and cultural changes in Egypt as World War II approaches. Kamal continues to pine for his ideal love, Aida, and almost finds it in her younger sister, Budur. His own indecision prevents him from making a commitment to her, turning away when she makes the slightest advance. Superficially his life resembles that of his nephew Ridwan, the beautiful son of his brother Yasin. Kamal meets his old friend Husayn Shaddad one final time, learning of the fate of Aida and the Shaddad family, but not with any sense of encouragement or satisfaction. As the novel ends family change occurs once again with the passing of Amina and the birth of Yasin's first grandchild. There is a hopeful sign as Yasin goes out with Kamal to buy clothes for the new baby.

Mahfouz's trilogy has epic sweep in its depiction of the changes to Cairo over the first half of the twentieth century mirrored in the growth and change of the Ahmad family. He presents ideas and demonstrates them with the actions and interactions of the characters as they love and learn and die. The outside world, first seen in the occupation of the British, grows throughout and looms ever larger as the final novel in the trilogy ends. Twentieth century ideologies are beginning to affect Egypt with the power seen elsewhere in the world and the portent is ominous. Yet with that Mahfouz leaves the reader with the possibility of hope and the encouragement that can only be found in a great literary achievement.