A stunning novel by the widest-read Arab writer currently published in the U.S. The age of Nasser has ushered in enormous social change, and most of the middle-aged and middle-class sons and daughters of the old bourgeoisie find themselves trying to recreate the cozy, enchanted world they so dearly miss. One night, however, art and reality collide--with unforeseen circumstances.
First published in 1966, Naguib Mahfouz's Adrift on the Nile is an atmospheric novel that dramatizes the rootlessness of Egypt's cosmopolitan middle class. Anis Zani is a bored and drug-addicted civil servant who is barely holding on to his job. Every evening he hosts a gathering on a houseboat on the Nile, where he and a motley group of cynical and aimless friends share a water pipe full of kif, a mixture of tobacco and marijuana. When a young female journalist--an "alarmingly serious person"--joins them and begins secretly documenting their activities, the group's harmony starts disintegrating, culminating in a midnight joyride that ends in tragedy.