رواية العائش في الحقيقة لنجيب محفوظ تجمع بين الواقع والخيال، لكنها تستند إلى قصة تاريخية حقيقية. تتناول الرواية شخصية إخناتون، فرعون مصر الذي دعا إلى التوحيد، وتعرض رحلته الفكرية والدينية من منظور مجموعة أشخاص عاصروه. رغم أن الأحداث مستمدة من التاريخ، فإن الطريقة التي يعرضها بها محفوظ، من خلال شهادات متعددة، تضفي عليها طابعًا روائيًا قد يبدو خياليًا في بعض الأحيان. بمعنى آخر، الرواية قائمة على وقائع حقيقية لكن بأسلوب أدبي يمنحها بُعدًا تخييليًا

Akhenaten has been an object of fascination for me since I first learned of the Amarna period in an art history elective I took back in high school. Out of nowhere comes this bizarre interruption in the life of a civilization famous above all else for the extraordinary continuity of its ritual, artistic, and political forms. A new god is worshipped in a magnificent new city. Traditional depictions of pantocratic pharaohs as stony and immobile as the kingdom itself give way to images of an eerie and androgynous ruler—long and slender face, inscrutable eyes, hourglass figure, sagging gut, and, as I vividly recall my teacher putting it, “some pretty bangin’ hips”—presented in various states of repose and relaxation: holding hands with his wife Nefertiti, doting on his daughters, offering worship with his family to the Aten, the life-giving solar disc, whose rays reach out to the whole world with human hands. The period is distinct for its unprecedented depictions of ordinary life and its naturalistic figures and poses. It was as if the supremacy of the Aten had an equalizing effect, its rays illuminating the mundane and the consequential, the lowly and the lofty. And then, just as suddenly, everything reverts to how it was before, the new capital is abandoned, and the name of Akhenaten is buried like an embarrassing secret. It's all suggestive of a powerful personal story, but one that is likely forever inaccessible to us—except in the imagination.

In Mahfouz’s novel, Akhenaten has recently died, the old ways have been hastily restored, and Nefertiti lives alone in a palace in the midst of the empty, decaying city of Akhetaten. Passing the city as he sails down the Nile with his father, a young man named Meriamun is seized by curiosity about the mysterious queen and her late husband, the now-infamous “heretic king.” With his father’s blessing, he decides rather abruptly to discover the truth about Akhenaten by interviewing those closest to him; and the novel is composed of these various, conflicting portrayals, culminating with the testimony of Nefertiti herself.

This Akhenaten, contrary to the historical evidence, is a thoroughgoing monotheist: one who comes to see even the Aten as a shadow of the One True God. He is also a pacifist with an unwavering conviction that once the True God has wrested control of Egyptian hearts and minds from the wrathful Amun, the whole social order of the nation—and the world—can be rebuilt on the basis of love rather than fear and violence. While the historical Akhenaten waged a propaganda war primarily against the cult of Amun—likely in part an effort to weaken the priesthood and centralize power—this one prohibits the worship of all other deities, closing their temples and distributing their riches to the poor. He declares an end to all punishment, and even restrains the army from defending the frontiers; a move which likely contributes to the death of Tushratta, king of Egypt’s Mitannian allies.

A prophet and visionary (or, perhaps, a madman) with no sense of pragmatism, his radical and uncompromising agenda captivates a minority of true believers, but also divides the kingdom, weakens the social fabric, and leaves the country vulnerable to invasion. The story ends tragically, with an isolated Akhenaten being replaced on the throne by Tutankhamun and dying in solitude, abandoned by his friends and even, in the end, by Nefertiti.

For some, he was a failure: a weak, effeminate dreamer who was unworthy to rule Egypt. For others, he was an emissary from a better world, and our world was unworthy of him. But what is the truth?

“Heed my words, Meri-Ra, for I speak the truth. Last night I was intoxicated with ecstasy. The darkness of the night was my companion, so intimate, like a lovely bride. I was entranced with longing for the Creator. And there, across a thousand visions, the truth revealed itself to me, more apparent than anything seen with the eye. I heard a voice sweeter than the scent of flowers: ‘Fill thy soul with my breath,’ it said. ‘Renounce what I have not granted thee. I am the Creator, I am the stream from which life flows. I am love, peace, and joy. Fill thy heart with my love, quench the thirst of all the tortured souls on earth.’”

He was radiant with excitement, dazzling.

“Do not fear the truth, Meri-Ra,” he continued, “for in the truth you will find happiness.”

“What splendid light,” I murmured breathlessly.

“Come, live with me in the truth,” he urged me.

بعد قراءة النبي المفقود اخناتون وبعد ذكر لقب العائش في الحقيقة اكثر من مرة قررت ان اعرف خلفية القصة بالكامل ثم الانطلاق في رحلة كتابات عم نجيب واكدتلي الخاطر صديقتي اميرة عندما طلبت مني قراءة الرواية بعد الكتاب

وكانت فكرة ممتازة
لا اعتقد اني كنت سأحب الرواية بهذا القدر لولا الكتاب اولا

عم نجيب يحكي انا حكاية اخناتون ونفرتيتي من اابداية للنهاية من وجهة نظر الجميع حرفيا.. او من بقي منهم على قيد الحياة بعد مغادرة الجميع لأخت آتون مدينة اخناتون الرائعة الجمال
من حرس لاصدقاء لاقارب حتى نفرتيتي لها نصيب الاسد في اكبر فصل من الرواية
نستمع لكل الحكاية وتفاصيلها والمغالطات وايضا الاتهامات والتبرئة
كل ما يمكن ان يخطر على بال البشر او يدور بينهم في السر او في العلن
آراء متضاربة من الجميع وكل منهم يحكي من وجهة نظره ما حدث ويحمل المسؤولية على شخص ما

كانت تجربة ممتعة والتنقل بين الشخصيات كان مميز جدا كعادة عم نجيب ❤

‘This is a story of innocence, of deception, and infinite grief.’

‘Akhenaten lived for the truth,’ we are told, ‘and because of the truth he died.’ What is truth, however, and how do we determine it when all eye-witness accounts are contradictory, biases and potentially misleading. Is there even a way to know the absolute truth in history? These questions are at the heart of Egyptian author and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz’s extraordinary Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth that follows a young man on his quest to learn who the former pharaoh, Akhenaten, truly was. Told from an objective narrator interviewing those around the now-deceased king a decade after his reign ended, this is a novel that looks at a singular story from fourteen different vantage points and opinions and asks the reader to make of them as they will. This is a book constructed almost entirely out of nuance and feels akin to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities in execution as we see the same idea from varied perspectives.This would be a wonderful book for high school courses as it embodies the concept of information discernment and critical analysis of opinions to ‘see the many facets of truth’ and derive an educated guess as to what honestly occured. In an age of information overload, intentional misinformation and media relying heavily on opinion and incendiary headlines in our pay-per-click news cycles, this is a crucial skill to work on. Brief yet infinitely powerful, Mahfouz examines the idea of truth through a historical study of a legacy already ripe with contradictory opinions as either a visionary or heretic in his quest for abolition, rule based on love and peace, anti-war and to make the Egyptian empire monotheistic.

Naguib Mahfouz had a life of similar contradictory opinions with the public. Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1988, he was a revered and prolific author (34 novels, over 350 short stories, 5 plays as well as movie scripts and frequent op-eds in newspapers) who was thrilled at the award not only for himself but to open the doors to Arabic literature being read around the world. His writings were frequently political, often using critiques of religion and public figures in stories steeped in existentialism and socialism. His books were banned in many countries, particularly Children of Gebelawi which led Omar Abdel-Rahman to call for his death. After Mahfouz defended Salman Rushdie when a fatwa was placed on him, it renewed ire against Mahfouz again leading to him being stabbed in the neck by two failed-assassins in 1994. Mahfouz lived but had nerve damage for the rest of his life which was lived under constant protection from bodyguards. Not a lightweight, Mahfouz is a great example of authors who were not afraid to speak out even declaring ‘no blasphemy harms Islam and Muslims so much as the call for murdering a writer.’

The story begins with Meriamum entering the dying city erected by Akhamaten during his rule. Once a great capitol it was now ‘a city droid of life, inert, possessed by silence, shadowed by gloom and the spirit of death,’ and also where the dead king’s wife, Nefertiti still lived as ‘a solitary prisoner sipping bitterness.’ With his father’s influence, Meriamum is able to interview those closest to Akhamaten because, like the subject of his research, he too dwells only in truth and lives by the idea spoken to him to ‘pass no judgement upon a matter until you have heard all testimonies.’ Frankly, I love this premise and that the narrator never intrudes, simply allowing the reader to take in all accounts (and ultimately decide for themselves as there is no real ‘conclusion’ so to speak, merely the end of the interviews) in this record of opinions that feels akin to librarianship and intellectual freedom.

‘I was happy to bid indolence farewell, and to set off along the path of history in search of truth, a path that has no beginning and no end, for it will always be extended by those who have a passion for eternal truth.’

If you need a brief primer on Akhenaten, the crux of the issue was that he worshiped the sun god, Aten, instead of Amun and after hearing a voice from The One God, dedicated his life in service of this God. He went as far as banning all other deities (including changing his name from Amenhotep IV to Akhanaten as well as erasing all records of his father’s name on the pretext that the name means ‘Amun is Content’ though surely his strained relationship with his father is also at play) and attempting to change Egypt from a polytheistic society to a monotheistic one. Naturally, this irked the high priests who conspired against him. ‘He conceived of a god similar to himself in weakness and femininity, both father and mother,’ the High Priest of Amun says, ‘with no other purpose but love.’

Love is important to Akhanaten’s view of the world, calling for complete abolition of punishment and prisons as well as removing taxes on the poor. It sounds great, right? But the powerful do not like this and set about ensuring it is sabotaged and chaos quickly spreads, Akhanaten detests the old pharaohs who ‘established [their] greatness on a pyramid of poor people’s corpses,’ and wants a land ruled by love and to ‘be God’s instrument to break the shackles of those who have no power.’ When enemies attack the border and military leaders call for troops, he sends them poems about love (okay I was really into that). When asked why he can’t enforce love with military power and punishment he replies that ‘vicious people and criminals always find an excuse to justify their third for blood.’ While some believe ‘anything is permissible if it will save the country’ it is said that he ‘believed in the means, not the end,’ and only used the throne to serve the purpose of his God.Published in 1985 while Egypt was under military rule, Mahfouz is really flexing here and calling out his government.

'Decipher his words, for only they bear the answers to your questions.'

You know right from the start that everything ends in tragedy. Tutankhamun is given control by the High Priests and Akhamaten dies of sickness shortly after (or, as his physician suggests, was he poisoned after the High Priests banished him from the city and put their own physician in place?). Nefertiti leaves him right before this happens, which is the great mystery as to why that seems to come up in every testimony, leading us to Nefertiti’s story as the final chapter of the book. Each testimony is the same story but it is fascinatingly well nuanced between each perspective. We see a wide range of opinions, showing Akhamaten as anything from ‘pure essence of sweetness and benevolence’ to a ruler ‘of questionable birth, effeminate and grotesque’ that was ‘driven by shame and stigma to destroy himself and the country.’

Notably the more (toxically) masculine characters dwell on the former ruler as feminine, some suggesting he was queer or possibly of both genders, and their opinions of Nefertiti tend to resent a woman for having a place of power and assume she was an evil and power hungry using religion as a political tool. The misogyny doubles down into classism as Nefertiti was not of royal birth with one character even asserting that her father, Ay, masterminded the whole thing to obtain the throne through the destruction of Egypt. Each character is biased and something Mahfouz does exceptionally well is have the most toxic characters end up revealing important details unknown until then, so you cannot completely discount their testimonies. Everyone has something to offer, everyone is biased in some way for a whole slew of reasons, everyone is unreliable yet through this mire of biases we must quest for truth.

Truth is shown to be quite ambiguous, just as much as any handle on who Akhamaten was is cloaked in nuanced mystery. While he is universally described as having unique and often a ‘repulsive appearance’, there is much duality to him such as being said to be both or ‘neither man nor woman’, an ambiguity in keeping with testimonies of his mental state as ‘he was neither mad nor sane like the rest of us. He was something in between.’ Questions of the validity of hearing the One God come up frequently, with characters saying as a man devoted to truth he never lied yet still disbelieving his account of the voice. What is particularly key here is that in a religion focused on icon and temples and other physical aspects, the One God appeared to him only as a voice with no form which is a radical departure from their belief systems. Mahfouz plays with progressive politics as much as he does the disconnect between tradition and modernism in religious beliefs.

‘He was a visionary promising a paradise irreconcilable with human nature. He confronted people with their mediocrity and provoked their deepest fears.’

There is a highly Christian aspect to this novel too, with Akhamaten often feeling very Christ-like. His words often parallel those of Jesus, such as asking God why He ‘has forsaken me’, his beliefs feel very much like those of Jesus and his death comes due to his threat to empire and High Priests. All of this feels very pointed in a 1985 novel as Mahfouz openly criticized Islamic extremism in the press, and Akhamaten often feels like a kindred spirit for the author (which, then, if we decide this, how objective of an interpretation to the many stories can we have and is this an authorial intent fallacy?)

Akhanaten: Dweller in Truth is a fabulous little novel. Clocking in at 168pgs this is easily read in a day but will dwell in your mind for many weeks to come. I finished it in one sitting I simply could not put it down. While the different voices could be a bit more distinguishable from one another, it does not detract and the cacophony of opinions makes for a really exciting way to address a single story. This is an excellent look at critical analysis of text and the ways we must decode history through contradictory information as well as a fascinating look into Egyptian history meant to resonate in the modern world. Highly recommended.

4.5/5

نجيب محفوظ يتحفنا بواحدة من روائعة عن حياة أخناتون
هذا الرجل هل كان فعلا نبى مرسل من الله ام كان مخبول ام واقع تحت تأثير أمة وزوجتة
ستعيش فى هذة الرواية جميع القصص والاحتمالات التى وردت فى التاريخ عن طريق اسلوب تعدد الرواة
العبقرى الذى حكي قصة اخناتون كل من وجهة نظرة
فتسمع الحكاية من الكاهن الاكبر لأتون وحور محب وحتي زوجتة نفرتيتي ومن عبقرية محفوظ انة يتركك فى النهاية
فى حيرة من أمرك فلا تدرى اين الحقيقة
خاصة أن موضوع اخناتون لم تتوصل لحقيقتة كتب التاريخ حتى الان فتوجد بعض النظريات والاراء بأنة
قد يكون نبي فعلا من عند الله وقد قرأت رأى مشابهة للدكتور مصطفى محمود عن هذا ا��موضوع

نجيب محفوظ ابدع من الناحية اللغوية فتشعر ان كل سطر قد كتب بعناية فائقة

كتاب ممتع بشدة ليس الاشهر لنجيب محفوظ لكنة من أفضل الروايات التي قرأتها لة

Naguib Mahfouz envisions a young man, Meriamun, who desires to discover the truth about the previous pharoah, Akhenaten, who challenged the traditional theology of Egypt and proselytized a singular deity that he claimed to be the "one" God. The format of the story is a series of interviews that Meriamun holds with people who surrounded the deceased pharoah, such as the commander of the armies; his life-long tutor and advisor; a sculptor whom Akhenaten charged with building a new capital; and others.

In theory, using different perspectives to build an historical narrative is a great idea; in execution, Mahfouz favors tone and content that makes it difficult to distinguish between the various parties, and the resulting narrative is narrow and surprisingly mundane. I wonder if these deficiencies originate from the translation. This being a short work (about 160 pages with large print), it was a quick, if uneventful read.

The historical basis for this story is fascinating, and I can see myself picking up an actual history book that touches on the subject. As for Mahfouz, I have heard far too much praise to stop here; someday, I want to read his Cairo trilogy.

ما تراه هو أربعة نجوم لا ثلاث.

أعلم أنك لا ترى الرابعة لأن نورها انطفىء للأخطاء التاريخية الفجة. أعلم أنها رواية لا كتاب تاريخ و لكن الأخطاء التى تحرف فهمك للتاريخ لا يمكن اغفالها و لعلها ليست أخطاء و انما ما كان سائدا وقت كتابة الرواية.

لنعد لروايتنا العبقرية. تتجلى عبقرية الرواية فى فكرتها قبل كل شىء.

الدين الذى يعتبره أغلب البشر المحرك الأول للتاريخ لم يكن هنا كذلك و لعله لم يكن كذلك أبدا على مر التاريخ.

الدين هنا مصنوعا من البداية للنهاية ككره تتلقفها الأيدى و الأرجل من الكهنة إلى رأس الملكة تى أم اخناتون التى تمررها بينية خطيرة لتستقر فى قدم الساحر اخناتون الذى يحاور بها من منتصف الملعب حتى يجتاز الجميع بمنتهى المهارة محرزا هدف السبق لإلاهه الواحد الأحد. أشعل الهدف المبارة و وتر أعصاب اللاعبين تماما أما الجمهور فيا للعجب لم يكن يعنيه من يفوز بل كان جمهورا ذواقا يشجع اللعبة الحلوة و الأعجب أن الفريقان باستثناء كهنة آمون فى ناحية و اخناتون فى الناحية الأخرى أما باقى اللاعبيين فكانوا يتبادلون الأدوار بين الفريقين حسب الظروف و الأحوال و المصالح و الأهواء و موازيين القوى. فلنعد لأجواء المباراة التى صورها محفوظ بأكثر من خمس عشرة من الكاميرات على غرار المباريات الأوروبية عن طريق اعادة الرواية بعيون مختلفة من زوايا مختلفة لعدد كبير من الأشخاص بلا ملل و كأنها فعلا مباراة أوروبية أو فيلم هوليودى حديث. الكرة تعود الى الكهنة يمررونها سريعا و بمهارة و خبث خلف الخطوط الاخناتونية لقائد جيشه و رجال حاشيته اللذين يبدلون قمصانهم بسرعة محرزين هدف التعادل فى مشهد فاضح يذكرنا بمشهد تكرر كثيرا فى التاريخ الحديث. يشعل الهدف المبارة و يعزز سيطرة الكهنة تماما على الاحداث و لأول مرة تجد مبارة لكرة القدم فريقها الأول به حارس مرمى و عشرون لاعبا و فريقها الأخر عبارة عن لاعب واحد هو كل الفريق. يتعقد المشهد السريالى اكثر بإصابة اخناتون و نزول لاعب فريق الناشئين توت عنخ آمون مكانه فى نفس اللحظة التى يحرز فيها الكهنة هدف الفوز. بجملة غرائب المبارة نجد الملك توت يخلع قميصه بسرعة لنجده يلبس تحته قميص الفريق المنافس و ينطلق نحوهم فيرفعونه عاليا ليحتفل الجميع بالفوز الغالى الذى حققه فريق الكهنة على فريق لم يعد موجودا أو ربما لم يوجد منذ بداية المباراه.

الخطأ التاريخى الأكبر و المؤثر هو ان توت ليس اخو اخناتون بل ابنه و حكم بعد وفاة ابيه او ربما قتله ثم لم يلبث ان قتل و تزوج آى قائد جيشه من أرملته و أصبح هو فرعون مصر.

يلح على ذهني عنوان يصلح لمقالة/دراسة نقدية - و مع ابتذاله - يصلح أن يكتب : رواية التاريخ الفرعوني من نجيب محفوظ إلي أحمد مراد

مع كل عمل أقرأه لنجيب محفوظ تتكشف لي عبقرية و مدى أستحقاقه بالفعل لجائزة نوبل

يلهو بالكلمات و العبارات بوقار ! يذهب بك أينما كان مكانك و زمانك إلي قلب أحداث روايته , تعيش مع أبطاله ف زمنهم بل تشعر أنك مصاحب لهم حتى ف خلواتهم .

تفوق الرجل ع كثير من الأطباء النفسيين في قراءة و تحليل الشخصيات و فهم الدافع لأعمالهم و لماذا يقومون بالعمل و نقيضه , لهذا يفضل دوما أن يكتب رواياته ع هيئة فصول كل فصل يتحدث البطل بلسانه .

جعل الرواية كأنها تحقيق صحفي أو كأنها فيلم وثائقي ساعده ع ذلك بالتأكيد و مكنه من سرد الأحداث من وجهة نظر كل طرف و تحمل الحدث الرئيسي بالأقوال المتضاربة مما يصعب مهمة الباحث عن الحقيقة في التاريخ , و انظر بنفسك للأحداث التي عايشتها اليوم كيف أن لها ألف وجه و ألف تفسير مع وجود كل ال(سوشيال ميديا ) و التدوين المفتوح لأي الشخص في الفضاء الإلكتروني الحر ما بالك بأحداث وقعت منذ آلاف السنين و جري عليها ما جري !

الروايه الي تخليني اقتنع بان روايه الحدث التاريخي هي روايه نسبيه وليست مطلقه..ترتبط من وجة نظر المحدّث ومنظورة الخاص.


الروايه الي تخليني اكون عايز اطلع حالا على بلد تبعد عني ب500 كيلو علشان اشوف مدينه اخت اتون(تل العمارنه حاليا).

الروايه الي تخليني عايز اطلع حالا على المتحف المصري علشان اشوف اخناتون ونفيرتي و حور محب وآي وتوت عنخ امون وامنتحب الثالث .

الروايه الي تخليني افتح ويكي بديا اكتر من مره علشان ابحث عن اسماء ملوك واشخاص ومدن واحاول اعرف حقيقة الي حصل.


لازم تاخد خمس نجوم*****

هكذا النوع الأول من البشر؛ وهو الأغلب الأعم، منذ بداية الخليقة إلى الآن: يميل لدين آباءه، يقدسه، ويتعصب لأجله، ويدافع عنه بكل ما أوتي من قوة؛ يراه حقيقة مطلقة، ثابتة، لا ريب فيها، فقط لأنه فُطر عليه، لا اكثر ولا أقل، وقد يملى عليه مئات الإجابات لسؤال: "لماذا اخترنا هذا الدين؟"؛ فينسى أنه لم يكن لديه اختيار من الأساس! لأنه ببساطة؛ ليس لديه أي معرفة بأي دين آخر! هو فقط يعلم أنه يؤمن بالإختيار الصحيح، ومن ثم فإن الآخرين جميعا، في ضلال هداهم الله! أما النوع الثاني: فهو تلك القلة النادرة من هؤلاء الباحثين عن الحقيقة؛ يراهم النوع الأول جاهلون، غافلون، يسخرون منهم، يرثون لحالهم، ينبذونهم، ويعزبونهم، ويصفونهم بالجنون... أما الأول فقد يربكه سؤالا في كتاب هنا، أو على لسان مشكك هناك؛ أما ذاك العائش في الحقيقة، فلا شيء ولا أحد يستطيع أن يحيده عن صراطه المستقيم. فسلام على أرواحهم جميعا، وسلام لروحك يا إخناتون.

Let’s go back to the time of the Pharaohs. Incongruously, the main character is kind of what we would call an investigative journalist; a young man who simply wants to interview all those around the recently deceased pharaoh, Akhenaten, to find out about him and the scandals surrounding his reign. He is able to do this because his father is a well-connected high official in the Egyptian bureaucracy and the father gives his son a letter of introduction to all these folks. The young man interviews Akhenaten’s mother, tutor, family doctor, army leader, religious leader, bodyguard, and so on, culminating with the late Pharaoh’s wife Nefertiti.



A bit of Egyptian history: Akhenaten was born Amenhotep IV, husband of Nefertiti and father of Tutankhamen. Akhenaten was regarded as an aberration among the Pharaohs. He was slight of build, effeminate, almost androgynous; a flower child who was uninterested in war and believed love could conquer all. He married a commoner, Nefertiti, the daughter of his tutor. What really got him in trouble, was that he was an early believer in what might be called monotheism. Before him, Egyptians believed in multiple gods for different features of nature and for different cities and regions of the country. Akhenaten believed in a single superior god, the sun-god, Aten (thus his name change). It was not quite monotheism because he still believed in multiple lesser gods.



The scandals that developed were easy to see coming. The priests were almost as powerful as the Pharaoh and they did not want their power and sources of income messed with. The military thought him a weakling who let Egypt’s enemies encroach on its borders without opposition. After Akhenaten’s early death (which may have been murder) official Egyptian records referred to him as “the criminal” or “the enemy.” Religious practices gradually returned to what they were and Akhenaten’s name was chiseled out of monuments and temples to his god were destroyed. The young man doing the interviewing finds opinions and feelings running the gamut from those who loved Akhenaten to those who hated him. A lot of the focus of the interviewer’s questioning is on whether or not the informant truly converted to belief in the one god or just went along simply to hold on to their positions.

The book is certainly is a novel approach to what could be called not a historical novel, but historical fiction. The author, Mahfouz is regarded as the classic man of Egyptian letters and the one who brought the modern novel to Egyptian readers. Most of his novels are about modern Egypt and he is best known for his Cairo Trilogy. (I also reviewed his novel, Respected Sir my link text)

Magnífica escrita de Mahfouz numa tentativa de decifrar o enigmático rei que quis ser monoteísta, só para chatear o clero de Amon. Certo é que reinou 18 anos e ficou na História. Interessante também a duplicidade da visão sobre Nefertiti. Um livro sobretudo para amantes da egiptologia.

Irei com certeza ler mais obras de Mahfouz.