Midaq Alley A New Translation

This much-loved Mahfouz masterpiece is a rich account of life in a back street in a poor quarter of medieval Cairo. While the novel focuses on a willful young woman whose ambition to escape the confines of the alley leads her into prostitution, a pageant of other vivid characters, from thecafe owner who likes boys to the man who creates maimed beggars and from the young man with the faithful heart to the rake and the pimp, fleshes out the picture of a society in crisis and transition. Though set during the Second World War, the characters' alienation from the prevailing political system and the desire of many of them to escape the economic and social stagnation of the alley give the work an unexpectedly up-to-date flavor. Mahfouz presents his characters with wry humor and arelish for the contradictions and fallibilities innate in people everywhere (even the alley's beloved spiritual mentor beats his wife). This new translation of one the writer's best known works has been undertaken to celebrate the centenary of his birth on 11 December 2011.

Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was born in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly 40 novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous screenplays. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988.

Humphrey Davies is the translator of a number of Arabic novels, including The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany (AUC Press, 2004). He has twice won the Saif Ghobash-Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translations for his translations of novels by Elias Khoury.