These short stories offer brief glimpses of their author's emerging talent, but, when these were written, Mahfouz was not yet at his best. While the tales are not without moral value--they function well as modern fables--there are moments when they feel flat. This is not the first book I would recommend to readers interested in Mahfouz. The edition is not well edited: there are a few grammatical errors and typos.

how can language so enchanting, dreamy, ethereal, create impact of political insight that is so penetrating, scathing, almost cynical? only in the hands of a master like Nobel Prize winner, Naguib Mahfouz. Here we read a story of police and judiciary, just men on earth, conspiring the return of incited crime and turmoil in a peaceful province to justify the security of their careers; a ruler who learns that all loyal followers prefer the victor, and he must keep friends at arm's length; a ruler who learns that all conquerors concede to the tradewinds of fate, and what is master in one millennium is slave in the next, and all hubris of power mummifies and decays to dust. A short book, a sideways work of Naguib Mahfouz that is still able to provoke thought in readers for a long time.

İlk öykü kutsanan kötülüğü okudum. Diğerleri yavan geldi.

Lush, lyrical writing. Really fun glimpse into the variety of stories centred in historical Egypt!

1988 Nobel Edebiyat Ödüllü Necib Mahfuz ile tanışma kitabım oldu Mumyanın Uyanışı. Yazarları öyküleriyle tanımayı seviyorum ama beş kısa öyküden müteşekkil bu minik kitap pek bir fikir vermedi Mahfuz hakkında. Tamamı Antik Mısır'da geçen yahut Antik Mısır'la bir biçimde ilişkilenen beş öyküden oluşuyor kitap.

Kitaba ismini de veren Mumyanın Uyanışı sürükleyici ve ilginç bir metin ancak içlerinde en sevdiğim Kutsanan Kötülük adlı ilk öykü oldu. Dünyanın düzeninin düzensizlik oluşuna, kötülüğün ortadan kaybolmasının, işi kötülüğü kontrollü biçimde gütmek olan birilerinin (iktidar sahipleri tabii bu birileri) işsiz kalmasına sebebiyet vereceği gerçeğine dair yazılmış bu küçük öykü, kitaptaki en akılda kalıcı ve özgün metindi bence.

Öykülerin hiçbiri kötü değil ama hiçbiri de çok iyi değil, o kadar nötr ki kitaba duygum, açıkçası ne yazacağımı bile bilemiyorum. Bazı öykülerdeki kıssadan hisse tadındaki mesaj kaygısı beni biraz uzaklaştırdı, bazılarındaki masalsı dili, kutsal kitaplardaki ve kadim metinlerdeki anlatılara benzeyen üslubu ise sevdim.

Sonuçta ziyadesiyle ortada kaldım. Mahfuz'a dair bir şey söyleyebilecek durumda değilim ama henüz, erken. Daha çok romanlarıyla tanınıyor zaten kendisi, romanlarıyla da biraz haşır neşir olayım da, sonra bakalım anlaşabiliyor muyuz.

A short book of five short stories all loosely based on the age of the Pharaohs. My favorite stories were King Userkaf's Forgiveness in which the Pharaoh questions his peoples loyalty and love for him and so he tests it and The Mummy Awakens in which a Pharaoh awakens when his tomb is disturbed. One of Mahfouz earlier books but very enjoyable.

Ada 2 hal yang menjadi alasan kenapa saya membeli buku ini. Pertama adalah keterangan bahwa penulis merukana pemenang penghargaan Nobel Sastra, setelah saya cek ternyata diperoleh tahun 1988. Kedua, apalagi jika bukan karena harganya yang terjun bebas he he he.

Meski hanya terdiri dari 5 cerita pendek, tapi karya ini benar-benar menunjukkan kelas seorang peraih Nobel. Bahkan juga terdapat informasi mengenai Kronologis Mesir Kuno.Menariknya, pada
bagian belakang terdapat Daftar Istilah yang membuat pembaca bisa semakin menikmati kisah yang ada dalam buku ini.

wow

I’m not sure why I decided to read this book. I’ve never been particularly interested in Egyptian history or its culture. But the book was thin and Naguib Mahfouz had won the Nobel Prize so I thought this might give me a taste of his writing without committing myself to a long novel. So I expected to be disappointed and that was pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy because I was. What didn’t help is the folkloric nature of the stories. I’ve never been a fan of fables and recently stopped reading Albena Stambolova’s Everything Happens as It Does because of the tone. I think it’s why I keep putting off reading Angela Carter.

This aside I simply wasn’t that impressed with the storytelling especially I wondered if ‘The Mummy Awakens’ was the template for the 1932 horror film but it seems the film came first and he’s parodying it here. But it just stops. The mummy comes to life, deliverers his spiel—and what he has to say is interesting (like the monster in Shelley’s novel this mummy is far more articulate than his cinematic counterpart)—but then we’re left hanging. The one I enjoyed the most was the final piece, the title story, in which we follow the final few hours of an Egyptian writer living at the time of Rameses II and his first few weeks coming to terms with the afterlife. I think why this one worked best in that it’s really timeless. The other were little morality tales: a Pharaoh, to prove a point, leaves his kingdom in the hands of his son and is surprised when he comes back to learn that he’s taken over completely and the only creature who’s still loyal to him is his dog. What did he expect to happen?

In his introduction the translator describes these five stories as “some of the master’s finest (but most unusual, and least familiar) works” and all I can say is that if these represent his best work then I’ve probably read enough to satisfy my curiosity. He’s not my kind of writer. Don’t get me wrong, none of these stories is horrible or badly written although Robert Knowles notes there are a few grammatical errors and typos; I can’t say I noticed.

Two stars is probably a little uncharitable—they probably deserve three stars at least—but I didn’t think the writing was amazing, I don’t think these are gems and really they’re probably only of interest to completists (like the recent publication of Beckett’s short story ‘Echo’s Bones). I was just the wrong reader for this book.

It would've taken a lot of effort from Naguib Mahfouz's side to stop me from giving a short story collection set in Ancient Egypt a 4/5 rating! These stories were so deliciously good I can hardly believe it! It is not hard to understand why Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arab to be awarded the Nobel prize in literature. He so eloquently blends his brilliantly imaginative fiction with our magnificent historic times!

Naguib Mahfouz is a literary master, sowing our modern day plights into the cloth of glorious history and characters. The parallels drawn in some of this collection and the literary genius displayed in others will leave no doubt in anyone's mind that Naguib Mahfouz is one the best writers of Egypt and of our time on a wider scale.

I must say that my passion for Ancient Egyptian history, myth and folklore make me a bit biased towards these beautiful short stories but I am a hard critic usually and Naguib Mahfouz was able to weave these stories in such a way that transported me back to the times of the Pharaohs, and that most certainly deserves a 4/5 rating!

ilk öykü ‘kutsanan kötülük’ü çok sevdim ama diğer öyküleri yalnızca okudum ve geçtim. “ilk öyküdeki sek tat diğerlerinde de olsaydı keşke” diye düşündüm.

Naguib Mahfouz takes us into ancient Egypt in this book of five stories. Although we are transported into an entirely unfamiliar world Mahfouz has a way of bringing differing worlds together. We meet a mysterious stranger who enters a village to teach virtue and justice, a powerful King with a lesson on forgiveness, a mummy who re-enters the modern world after his tomb is disturbed by a wealthy man, and the tale of two brothers who share a common interest but are separated by decades and false assumptions. In the final tale we are allowed to get inside the head of a dying man as he leaves his earthly body, is mummified and entombed, it is an extraordinary piece of writing confronting the ultimate human condition of death and imaging the afterlife. Mahfouz demonstrates his gift as an ageless, and exceptional, storyteller not just for Egypt but for the world.