Anchor proudly presents a new omnibus volume of threenovels--previously published separately by Anchor--by NaguibMahfouz, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Assembled here isa collection of Mahfouz's artful meditations on the vicissitudes ofpost-Revolution Egypt. Diverse in style and narrative technique,together they render a rich, nuanced, and universally resonantvision of modern life in the Middle East. The Beggar is a complex tale of alienation and despair. In theaftermath of Nasser's revolution, a man sacrifices his work andfamily to a series of illicit love affairs. Released from jail inpost-Revolutionary times, the hero ofThe Thief and the Dogs blamesan unjust society for his ill fortune, eventually bringing himselfto destruction. Autumn Quail is a tale of moral responsibility,isolation, and political downfall about a corrupt bureaucrat who isone of the early victims of the purge after the 1952 revolution inEgypt.
Recounts the enchanted career of the con man extraordinaireFelix Krull--a man unhampered by the moral precepts that govern theconduct of ordinary people.
Amid the cactus wilds some two hudred miles from Hollywoodlies a privileged oasis called Desert D'Or. It is a place forstarlets and would-be starlets, directors, studio execs, and thewell-groomed lowlifes who cater to them. And, as imagined by NormanMailer in this blistering classic of 1950s Hollywood, Desert D'Oris a moral proving ground, where men and women discover what theyreally want--and how far the are willing to go to get it. "The DeerPark" is the story of two interlacing love affairs. SergiusO'Shaugnessy is a young ex-Air Force pilot whose good looks and airof indifference launch him into the orbit of the radiant actressLulu Meyers. Charles Eitel is a brilliant director wounded byaccusations of communism--and whose liaison with the volatile ElenaEsposito may supply the coup de grace to his career. As Mailertraces their couplings and uncouplings, their uneasy flirtationwith success and self-extinction, he creates a legendary portraitof America's machinery of desire.
No career in modern American letters is at once so brilliant,varied, and controversial as that of Norman Mailer. In a span ofmore than six decades, Mailer has searched into subjects rangingfrom World War II to Ancient Egypt, from the march on the Pentagonto Marilyn Monroe, from Henry Miller and Mohammad Ali to JesusChrist. Now, in The Castle in the Forest, his first majorwork of fiction in more than a decade, Mailer offers what may behis consummate literary endeavor: He has set out to explore theevil of Adolf Hitler. The narrator, a mysterious SS man who is later revealed to be anexceptional presence, gives us young Adolf from birth, as well asHitler’s father and mother, his sisters and brothers, and theintimate details of his childhood and adolescence. A tapestry of unforgettable characters, The Castle in theForest delivers its playful twists and surprises withastonishing insight into the nature of the struggle between goodand evil that exists in us all. At its core is a hypothesis t
