Voices from the Other World: Ancient Egyptian Tales

by Mahfouz, Naguib

• ISBN13: 9789774247583
• ISBN10: 9774247582
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-02-01
• Publisher: Amer Univ in Cairo Pr

Summary

The forces of law and order disturb a district's too-perfect peace at the dawn of Egyptian civilization. A wise and popular pharaoh is betrayed by his own son, and by his dearest friends - then makes a most peculiar decision. A mummy returns to life after three thousand years, to confront the arrogant new race that now rules the land. A favored prince flees to a faraway country when the king dies suddenly, leaving his true love behind - only to come back to question her about their forty lost years. A famous young writer, composer of a legendary epic of Pharaoh's greatest battle with the Hittites, is carried off without warning by a mysterious disease - then speaks to us in this life from beyond the veil of death. Such are the tales that make up this volume of five masterly stories by the young Naguib Mahfouz, all inspired by the Egypt of the pharaohs. Like three novels set in ancient times that he also published early in his career, these stories reveal his wide reading of Egypt's (and the world's) oldest history and literature. All of these gems, however, are very much his own creations. Their voices speak with the familiar genius of Egypt's greatest modern writer - though they call from a very different world than the one for which he is best known.

Author Biography

Naguib Mahfouz was born in 1911 in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya, an area on which he has drawn heavily for the setting of many of his novels. He worked in various government ministries until his retirement in 1971. He began writing serious work at the age of seventeen, and his first novel was published in 1939. Since then he has written nearly forty novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous cinema plots and scenarios, many of which have been made into successful films. Today Naguib Mahfouz lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters, and continues to create new fiction Raymond Stock is writing a biography of Naguib Mahfouz. A doctoral student in Arabic literature at the University of Pennsylvania, his articles, poems, and translations from Arabic have appeared in publications in Egypt, the United States, and other countries

Table of Contents

Chronology of Ancient Egypt	vii
Translator's Introduction	ix
Evil Adored	1	(12)
King Userkaf's Forgiveness	13	(14)
The Mummy Awakens	27	(20)
The Return of Sinuhe	47	(10)
A Voice From the Other World	57	(20)
Glossary	77