Name: Sugar Street
ISBN: 9781101974735

Naguib Mahfouz

Master storyteller Naguib Mahfouz crowns his best-selling Cairo Trilogy with this final chronicle of the Abdal-Jawad clan, climaxing the story begun in Palace Walk and continued in Palace Of Desire.

The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 3

Sugar Street

Hafsa

A worthy end to a great trilogy. It isn't the best book out of the three but it's fascinating to see how much the family has changed over the course of these three books; for starters each member gets to dictate their own lives compared to back in Palace Walk where Al-Sayyid Ahmad made every decision for them. You feel like you're growing up with the characters and their story seems somewhat familiar to the stories of our own families. The only major gripe I had was that Kamal seems to have not developed much as a character and his perpetual indecision is infuriating. Overall, I enjoyed this book and it was an easy read at around 300 pages.

Vivian

Felt a bit melancholy after finishing the trilogy. There were no particular dramatic events, just ordinary people living their ordinary lives, who sometimes got caught up in the currents of history, yet life goes on. No hero and no villain. Take a magnifier and zoom in anywhere and anytime in history, you'll find a family's story worth telling.

Sugar Street, the climactic conclusion to Mafhouz's masterpiece trilogy, is the captivating portrait of a family struggling to change with the rise of modern Egypt. As Cairo shrugs off the final vestiges of colonialism, Ahmad Al Jawad has lost his power and surveys the world from a latticed balcony. Unable to control his family's destiny, he watches helplessly as his dynasty and the traditions he holds dear disintegrate before his eyes. But through Ahamd's three grandsons we see modern how Egypt takes shape. One grandson is a communist activist, another a Muslim fundamentalist, both working for what they believe will be a better world. And Ridwan, the inheritor of his father's charms, launches a political career aided by a homosexual affair with prominent politician.

Sugar Street The Cairo Trilogy, Volume 3