JOURNEY OF IBN FATTOUMA, THE(ISBN=9780385423342)

Publisher Comment
In this pithy, powerful parable, the masterly Naguib Mahfouz explores life's secrets and the mysterious maze of the human heart--a mystical and lyrical Pilgrim's Progress set in a mythical, timeless Middle East.

First published in Arabic in 1983, this brief but powerful parable is presented as the journal of a traveler known as Ibn Fattouma. A mystical, lyrical Pilgrim's Progress set in a mythical, timeless Middle East, by the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 33 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays, and 30 screenplays. 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 awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in Arabic to do so. He died in August 2006.