Product Description

A vibrant novel of memorable characters who search for happiness and true love, cope with the bitterness that results from love's betrayal, and embrace new beginnings.

Set in Cairo in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967, introduces us to an assortment of characters who, each in his or her own way, experience the effects of this calamitous event. The war and its casualties, as well as people's foibles and the tragedies they create for themselves, raise existential questions that cannot easily be answered.

In a frank, sensitive treatment of everything from patriotism to prostitution, homosexuality and lesbianism, presents a struggle between "old" and "new" in the realm of moral values that leaves the future in doubt. Through the dilemmas and heartbreaks faced by his protagonists, Mahfouz exposes the hypocrisy of those who condemn any breach of sexual morality while turning a blind eye to violence, corruption, and oppression, double standards as applied to men's and women's sexuality, and the folly of an exclusive focus on sexual morals without reference to other aspects of human character.