Welcome to Litsy!

This has been on my shelf for years. I have started it twice. Sixty pages in and I don‘t find it interesting at all.

A story of a cairo street during ww2 which doesn't shy away from the darker side of society with a cafe owner obsessed with yng boys, a man who makes a living by disabling men to become beggars, a dentist who finds his gold teeth from corpses, and a yng woman who drifts into prostitution. Despite dark themes the author tells a story with love of characters + a society you feel he knows intimately. I imagined myself sat in a cafe
observing it all.

👍👍

“Many things combine to show that Midaq Alley is one of the gems of times gone by and that it once shown forth like a flashing star in the history of Cairo.” #FirstLineFridays

@ShyBookOwl

Need a break from school and work so I‘m sitting outside with my book club book.

This was a quite enjoyable short novel about the personalities and dramas between the residents of a back alley in the slums of Cairo. There's an exotic flavor to it (of course) and while I didn't read it in the original Arabic, the Le Gassick translation upholds a poetic prose that I imagine is more pronounced in the original. The story is compelling, but ends in much tragedy. All in all, it's a good read, just not an uplifting one.

'This crisis too, like all the others, finally subsided and the alley returned to its usual state of indifference and forgetfulness.' #1001books

Midaq Alley in Cairo means the world to most of its inhabitants, who hardly ever leave it. And indeed it is, with all that happens to the people who live there. Mahfouz creates personages and an atmosphere that make the alley incredibly real to me. The joy and the sadness, the interaction between the neighbours and their faith in god make it a an authentic and unforgettable story. #1001books

A couple more books #setinthemiddleeast #maybookflowers #tbr

USED BOOKSTORE HAUL

I have wanted to read Mahfouz FOREVER!