Midaq Alley (novel)

Midaq Alley (novel)

This article is about the Naguib Mahfouz novel. For the film of the novel, see El callejón de los milagros. For the alley, see Khan El-Khalili.

Midaq Alley  
Author(s) Naguib Mahfouz
Original title زقاق المدق
Translator Trevor Le Gassick
Country Egypt
Language Arabic
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Anchor Books
Publication date 1947
Published in
English
1966
Media type Print (Hardback)
Pages 286 pp
ISBN 0-385-26476-3
OCLC Number 438354830
Dewey Decimal 892/.736 20
LC Classification PJ7846.A46 Z4813 1992

Midaq Alley is the English Translation of Zuqāq al-Midaq by Naguib Mahfouz, released in English in 1966. The story is about Midaq Alley, a teeming back street in Cairo which is a microcosm of the world. This work won its author the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Contents

Plot introduction

Mahfouz plays on the cultural setting. The novel is introduced with description of the Arabic culture. It centers around the list of characters described below. The novel takes place in the 1940's and represents standing on the threshold of a modern era in Cairo and the rest of the nation as a whole.

Characters

Each character is expressed like a caricature in which one quality or trait is over-emphasized. Mahfouz is not satirizing the individual character – he is satirizing the character type.[citation needed]

  • Kirsha, a café owner who illegally sells and uses hashish and has a predilection for young boys
  • Mrs. Kirsha, infamous for her temper
  • Uncle Kamil, good-hearted, bachelor sweets-seller, famously bloated and sleepy
  • Abbas, a young, kindly barber who wants to get married
  • Salim Alwan, the wealthy businessman who is embittered after surviving a heart attack
  • Dr. Booshy, the self-proclaimed dentist who sells false teeth at dirt-cheap prices by stealing them off dead bodies
  • Sanker, the waiter at Kirsha’s café
  • Sheikh Darwish, the old poet and former English teacher, who left his former life to roam the streets.
  • Radwan Hussainy, a landlord who beats his wife failed his al-Azhar exams, yet is revered for his high degree of education and devotion to Allah. He has lost all of his children.
  • Hussain Kirsha, son of the café owner who works for the British. He marries a woman of lower class and returns home with her and her brother.
  • Saniya Afify, widowed landlady who desires to remarry
  • Umm Hamida, the neighborhood matchmaker and bath attendant; Hamida's foster mother
  • Hamida, a beautiful young woman who dreams of a better life and has a distinctly self-centered personality, but is easily persuaded by wealth or power.
  • Husniya, the bakeress who beats her husband with her slipper
  • Jaada, Husniya’s husband
  • Zaita, the cripple maker who lives outside the bakery and aids Dr. Booshy in his theft of false teeth.
  • Ibrahim Farhat, a politician
  • Ibrahim Faraj, a pimp
  • The Poet, who is replaced by a radio, and is barred by Kirsha (only appears in the first chapter)

See also

External links



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