A collection of sketches of Cairo life and mystical but human characters, found among the papers of the great mid-century Egyptian writer with a slip of paper titled 'for publishing 1994.' Simon Sebag Montefiore has called Mahfouz 'the Arab Tolstoy. Newly discovered collection of unpublished stories by key figure and Nobel Prize winner in literature, these fable-like stories carry Mahfouz's signature observations of the human character, taking the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo
