![]() ![]() Having already spent over a decade examining contemporary national issues, particularly the confl ict of the aspiring individual against a convulsively changing society, Mahfouz wrote The Cairo Trilogy with the intent of tracing this tension on a broader scale. The work has been hailed for its depiction of the changing conditions of Egypt’s urban society as it underwent political, social, and religious struggles during the turbulent interwar period following the end of World War I, producing a confl ict between Egypt’s nationalist aspirations and Great Britain’s imperialist and colonial power. The trilogy is considered by many to be Naguib Mahfouz’s magnum opus, written at the peak of his realist phase. The titles of the trilogy’s three novels- Palace Walk ( Bayn al-Quasrayn, 1956), Palace of Desire ( Qasr al-Chawq, 1957), and Sugar Street ( Al-Sukkariyya, 1957)-are taken from actual street names in the Al- Jamaliyya district of Cairo. The first great family saga of modern Arabic literature, The Cairo Trilogy tells the story of patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family over the course of more than 30 years, from World War I to eight years before the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952. Analysis of Naguib Mahfouz’s The Cairo Trilogy ![]()
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