Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth by Naguib Mahfouz, Paperback, 9780385499095 | Buy online at The Nile
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Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth

Dweller In Truth

Author: Naguib Mahfouz  

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo trilogy, comes Akhenaten, a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. In this beguiling new novel, originally published in 1985 and now appearing for the first time in the United States, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"—and the first known monotheistic ruler—whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh's contemporaries after his horrible death—including Akhenaten's closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti—in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten's court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, "the truth" becomes increasingly evanescent. Akhenaten encompasses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly.

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Summary

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo trilogy, comes Akhenaten, a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt. In this beguiling new novel, originally published in 1985 and now appearing for the first time in the United States, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"—and the first known monotheistic ruler—whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh's contemporaries after his horrible death—including Akhenaten's closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti—in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten's court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, "the truth" becomes increasingly evanescent. Akhenaten encompasses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly.

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Description

In this utterly entralling work of fiction, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of yhe 'heretic' pharoah whose iconoclastic and controversial career has such resonance with modern sensibilities. In the book, years after the king's death, a young man with a passion for the truth questions the pharoah's contemporaries - including his closest friends, his bitterest enemies, and his enigmatic wife Nefertiti - in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange dark days at Akhenaten's court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contributes their version of the 'truth', the truth becomes ever more elusive as the mysterious Akhenten recedes into a heroic kind of opacity, encompassing the whole of contradiction his subjects see in him: at once cruel (so says the High Priest of Amun) and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired (as per Nefertiti). His character is eerily modern and at the same time, fascinatingly elusive.

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Critic Reviews

“Praise for Naguib Mahfouz: "The greatest writer in one of the most widely understood languages in the world, a storyteller of the first order in any idiom."-- Vanity Fair "A Dickens of the Cairo caf”

Praise for Naguib Mahfouz:

"The greatest writer in one of the most widely understood languages in the world, a storyteller of the first order in any idiom." --Vanity Fair

"A Dickens of the Cairo cafes." --Newsweek

"The incredible variety of Naguib Mahfouz's writings continue to dazzle our eyes." --The Washington Post

"Naguib Mahfouz virtually invented the novel as an Arab form. He excels at fusing deep emotion and soap opera." --The New York Times Book Review

"Mahfouz's work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. The Nobel Prize acknowledges the universal significance of his fiction." --Los Angeles Times Book Review

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About the Author

NAGUIB MAHFOUZ was born in 1911 in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He studied philosophy at Cairo University, then worked in various government ministries until his retirement in 1971. His first three published novels were Khufu's Wisdom (1939), Rhadopis of Nubia (1943), and Thebes at War (1944), all of which are set in ancient Egypt. These political and philosophical critiques disguised as historical romances show the unmistakable signs of a burgeoning literary genius. He went on to write more than 35 other novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous cinema plots a

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Product Details

Publisher
Anchor Books | Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Published
30th April 2000
Pages
178
ISBN
9780385499095

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