Three Novels of Ancient Egypt Khufu’s Wisdom, Rhadopis of Nubia, Thebes at WarTranslated by Raymond Stock, Anthony Calderbank and Humphrey DaviesIntroduction by Nadine Gordimer If the urge to write should ever leave me , Mahfouz said in an interview recently, I want that day to be my last.

The books’ titles are taken from actual streets in Cairo, the city of Mahfouz’s childhood and youth.The trilogy follows the life of the Cairene patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family across three generations, from World War I to the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952.