Midaq Alley

Set in a crowded Cairo alley during the 1940s, Midaq Alley follows shopkeepers, workers, families, and ambitious young residents whose lives intersect within a rapidly changing city. Among them, Hamida seeks a way beyond the limits of the neighbourhood, while Abbas hopes work and devotion will secure their future. Naguib Mahfouz uses the alley as a detailed social world shaped by class, desire, tradition, and wartime change. This English-language physical paperback is an adult work of literary fiction and is better placed under Classics & Literary than Fiction General.