Beginning and End (from Mahfouz's Collection)

Author: Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt), translated by Yuan Songyue
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-05-01
Features: Naguib Mahfouz is a renowned contemporary Egyptian novelist and a Nobel Prize-winning Arab writer. This book is one of his masterpieces. The novel depicts the life of Kamel Ali, an employee of the Ministry of Education, who leaves behind his wife and three children after his death. They rely on financial assistance from friends and the sale of furniture to make ends meet. Among the children, the eldest son is idle and gets involved in shady dealings; the second son is upright and starts working after graduating from high school; the youngest son is vain, abandons his girlfriend after enrolling in the military academy, and seeks a new lover; the daughter, Nafisa, was originally a skilled seamstress, but her mentality becomes twisted after a breakup. She engages in indiscriminate sexual relationships, gets caught, and is relentlessly pursued by her military officer brother. Desperate, she jumps into the Nile and commits suicide. The brother then regrets his actions and also drowns. Through the portrayal of a family's misfortunes and transformations, the work reflects the hardships of life and successfully captures the social life and moral landscape of the Egyptian people at the time.