"Sugar Street", the third novel in the Cairo Trilogy by the 1988 Egyptian Nobel Laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, follow the family of Al-Sayyid Ahmad and his wife, Amina, into the generation of his grandsons.
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During the years from 1930 to 1952, the grandsons marry; one, a modern, working woman, the other, his cousin, a traditional Muslim woman who dies in childbirth. At the same time, Egypt, once a democracy, sucumbs to nationalist party ribalries, and dissolves once more, into a manarchic dictatorship.
In the novel, the patriach and his wife die along with their friends and traditions of their age group, . Their philosopher son, Kamal,cannot bring himself to marry the young sister of his romantic love, . He sees his nephews imprisoned by the military for their beliefs, .
Mahfouz depigts the modernization of Caio simultajeously with the decline of Egypt's dreams of a democracy.
The review of this Book prepared by Betty-Jeanne Korson
