In this novel, titled after the Qashmar Caf\u00e9 in Abbassia, Naguib Mahfouz recounts the relationship between five friends from the neighborhood: two from eastern Abbassia, where the wealthy of the past lived in palaces; two from the more modest western Abbassia; and the fifth, the narrator, who many consider Mahfouz to represent himself. Their class affiliations, financial circumstances, and intellectual and political views differ, yet they are united by a friendship that brings them together and carries them through time. Through this long-standing relationship, Mahfouz documents the many transformations that Egyptian society witnessed during a period extending from World War I to the time of Sadat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A short novel by Naguib Mahfouz that tells the story of a young man living in a world of loss and disappointment, facing social and psychological challenges in his search for meaning and identity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_cat":[830,905,899,911],"product_tag":[2728,1082,1359,1089],"class_list":{"0":"post-14031","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-literature","7":"product_cat-world-literature","8":"product_cat-prose-literature","9":"product_cat-novels","10":"product_tag-literature","11":"product_tag-novels","12":"product_tag-philosophy","13":"product_tag-sociology","14":"pa_book-author-naguib-mahfouz","16":"first","17":"onbackorder","18":"shipping-taxable","19":"purchasable","20":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/14031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=14031"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/awraqonline.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=14031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}