A stunning example of Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouzะฒะโขs psychological portraiture, The Mirage is the story of an intense young man who has been so dominated by his mother that her death sets him dangerously adrift in a world he cannot manage alone.
Kamil Ruะฒะโขba is a tortured soul who hopes that writing the story of his life will help him gain control of it. Raised by a mother who fled her abusive husband and became overbearingly possessive and protective toward her young son, he has long been isolated emotionally and physically. Now in his twenties, Kamil seeks to escape her posthumous grasp. Finding and successfully courting the woman of his dreams seems to promise salvation, until his ignorance of mature love and his fear and jealousy lead to tragedy.ะย
Review
ะฒะัMahfouz is a storyteller of the first order in any idiom.ะฒะั ะฒะโVanity Fair
About the Author
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 33 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays, and 30 screenplays. Of his many works, most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk (1956), Palace of Desire (1957), and Sugar Street (1957), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, he became the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.