Le Jardin du passé

From another point of view, love seemed to him a "dictatorship", a thing that Egyptian life had taught him to hate, and from the very depths of his heart! In the house of "his aunt" Galila, he offered his body to Atiyya, then took it back immediately, as if nothing had happened. As for that respectable, modest young girl, she would accept nothing less than his body and his soul at the same time... and for eternity! From then on, he would have only one line to pursue: the struggle for subsistence in order to ensure the survival of the family and the children! Naguib Mahfouz. Third and final installment of the great novelistic fresco that recounts the transformations of Egypt tipping into modernity, after Dead End of the Two Palaces and The Palace of Desire, The Garden of the Past amplifies the story of Abd el-Gawwad's family. A new generation, now, embodies the contradictions and the wounds of the country: they are the grandchildren of Abd el-Gawwad, Ahmed, the communist, and Abd el-Monem, the Muslim brother. Conflicts between ideologies, opposition between traditional values and those of the new society...