Note: Naguib Mahfouz was WINNER of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.
(Reviewed DEC 30, 2008)
“In spite of all the wrong turns, [the country] was growing in power and prestige, always expanding and getting bigger. It was making goods of all kinds, from needles to rockets, and broadcasting a wonderful new and humane trend in the life of humanity. But what was the point of all that if people were so feeble and downtrodden that they were not worth a fly, if they had no personal rights, no honor, no security, and if they were being crushed by cowardice, hypocrisy, and desolation?”
In this powerful novella by Naguib Mafouz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, a narrator stops in at the Karnak Café, an off-the-beaten-path café in Cairo run by Qurunfula, a former belly dancer, famous because she raised her craft to the level of true art. Recognizing her immediately, despite the passage of time since her prime, the narrator, a great admirer, stays 
and visits. He is soon seduced by the atmosphere in the café and by the charm of a small group of regulars–three old men, three young people, and the PR director of a company—who, along with the steward behind the bar, a waiter, and the bootblack, visit each other every day at the café and create their own urban “family.”
Written in 1974 and newly translated by Roger Allen, the novel takes place in the mid-1960s and focuses on the Karnak café regulars as they respond to some key moments in contemporary Egyptian history. For the young people, “history began with the 1952 Revolution,” in which the army, led by a young officer named Gamal Abdel Nasser, overthrew King Farouk, abolished the pro-British monarchy, and established a republic, inspiring other Middle Eastern and north African countries in an Arab sovereignty movement. In 1954, Nasser became President of Egypt. Hopes were high then and continue to be high for the young at the café in the early 1960s, despite the acknowledged (and continuing) problems with civil rights, poverty, and the abuses of the police.
The three young people and their fates become the focus of the narrator when the young people inexplicably disappear for several months. One of them, Hilmi Hamada, has been the lover of Qurunfula, a love relationship which has given her life new meaning. Hilmi, his friend Isma’il al-Shaykh, and Isma’il’s love Zaynab Diyab, have all been arrested, supposedly because they are involved with the fedayeen movement, a militant Islamic movement which might threaten the current government. After several months of incarceration under deplorable conditions, which they describe after their release, they are found innocent, and they try to continue their previous lives—until they are arrested and imprisoned again, this time on the suspicion that they are Communists.
Mahfouz develops tremendous suspense about the outcomes of the regulars of the Karnak Café, at the same time that he creates an intense look at the pressures placed upon them as they try to live their lives and do what they think is right. The “family” atmosphere, which is so dominant at the beginning of the story, slowly dissipates when the young people disappear. The reasons for their disappearance become speculation, and Qurunfula becomes more distraught because Isma’il is gone, with no hint as to when he may return. Changing points of view—from Qurunfula, to Isma’il al-Shaykh, Zaynab, and Khalid Safwan—keep the interest in the outcome high and the perspective on events constantly changing.
Ultimately, the cafe-goers must consider whether “peace is more risky than war.” As they and others investigate religion as the answer, then communism, democracy, socialism, and war as the “answer,” they must also consider whether negotiation with the great powers, especially America, might lead to peace. Their individual lives are shattered by their arrests and imprisonments, and their ability to trust is gone forever. Though they insist that they still believe in the future of the revolution of 1952, their experience less than fifteen years later shows them and the reader just how far they have left to go. Dynamic, powerful, and thought-provoking, this novella carries a punch—and modern relevance–that the reader will not soon forget.
Notes: Also by Naguib Mahfouz: AKHENATEN, THE MIRAGE , THE DAY THE LEADER WAS KILLED, BEFORE THE THRONE, and MORNING AND EVENING TALK, CAIRO MODERN
The author’s WIKI PAGE is here.
To honor Mahfouz’s Nobel Prize success, Zambia issued a stamp in his honor, used as the author’s photo here.
