The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street.

New York: Doubleday, 1990-1992. First American editions of author's most well known work; a trilogy originally published in Egypt in the 1950's and which garnered him the Nobel Prize in literature decades later in 1988. Octavo, 3 volumes, original half cloth. Each volume was signed by Naguib Mahfouz at the Shepheard Hotel in Cairo in 2006. All three are near fine in near fine dust jackets. Jacket designs by Carin Goldberg. Translated by William M. Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny. Books signed by Mahfouz are rare as he left Egypt only twice during his life, each time only but for a short time. The Cairo Trilogy traces three generations of the family of patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. The Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller reminiscent of Tolstoy. "Naguib Mahfouz is not only a Hugo and a Dickens, but also a Galsworthy, a Mann, a Zola, and a Jules Romains" (Edward Said).