The Beggar
Set in Cairo in the early 1950s, this novel portrays the psychological torment of Omar, an ardent revolutionary in his youth who in middle age has been left behind by Nasser's 1952 Revolution. His conscience has died. As he struggles for psychological renewal, he sacrifices his work and his family to a series of illicit love affairs, which simply increase his alienation from himself and from the rest of the world.
Reviews
"The political and the personal, the universal and the particular, merge in Nobel laureate Mahfouz's perceptive 1965 tale of alienation."—Publishers Weekly
"[A] poignant portrayal of the hardships faced by those at the margins of society, offering a glimpse into the underbelly of social issues that often go unnoticed."—Forum for World Literature Studies
"The Arab world's foremost novelist"―The New York Times
"Mahfouz's work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical."―The Los Angeles Times
"A towering literary figure"―The Economist
"Egypt's greatest living writer and one of the world's most humane literary figures"―Laila Lalami, The Nation
"Timeless."―New Statesman
"A master of both detailed realism and fabulous storytelling"―The Guardian
"Mahfouz is a storyteller of the first order in any idiom." ―Vanity Fair
"An elegant if perplexing tale by one of modern Arab literature's greatest voices."―Kirkus
