The Cairo Trilogy

The trilogy follows the life of the Cairene patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family across three generations, from 1919 – the Egyptian Revolution against the British colonizers – to the end of the Second World War in 1944. The three novels represent the three phases of the Cairene socio-political life, a panorama of Egypt, through the life of Abd al-Jawad and his children and grandchildren.

To Kamal, the youngest son, Mahfouz admits that he gives him some features of himself, as they both have got a BA in philosophy from what is called nowadays the University of Cairo and have problems with profound contradictions they discern between religious principles and the scientific discoveries of the West.

Seen as a child in the first novel, a university student in the second, and a teacher, not married, in the third, Kamal loses his faith in religion, in love, and in traditions and lives in the second and third novels as an outsider in his own society. He keeps searching for meaning of his life until the last scene that seems an imposed one by Mahfouz to give some air of hope. Then Kamal's attitude to life changes to the positive as he starts to see himself as 'idealistic' teacher, future husband and revolutionary man.

Likewise Mahfouz sees the development of society has an important influence on the role of women, so he represents the traditional, obedient women who do not go to school such as Amina, Abd al-Jawad's wife, and her daughters in the first novel, women as students in the university such as Aida, Kamal's beloved, in the second novel, and women as students in the university, members of the Marxist party and editors of the journal of the party in the third novel.