Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz, offers this epic story of a single alley in Cairo and the generations that passed through it.

A tumultuous neighbourhood known as 'the alley' has seen successive heroes rise and fall as they struggle to defend the rights left to them by their great ancestor, Gebelawi.

From the supreme feudal lord who disowns one son for pride and puts another to the test, to the saviour who tries to free his people from bondage, the men and woman of the alley seem unable to stop themselves from reenacting the lives of their holy forbearers. Through their successes and failures, the spiritual history of humankind is revealed.

Hailed as 'the single most important writer in modern Arabic literature' (Newsweek), Naguib Mahfouz displays the richness and variety of his storytelling in this Egyptian literary classic.

From the author of The Arab Predicament and Dream Palace of the Arabs comes a beautiful and haunting memoir of growing up in Lebanon in the '50s and '60s-the story of a sensitive young man and budding intellectual caught between tradition and modernity, east and west. As one of the most profound and insightful scholars of the Middle East, Fouad Ajami's sensibility was powerfully shaped by his childhood and youth in Lebanon in the '50s and '60s. The time was a transitional one-not only for the Middle East, but for America and the world. Lebanon in this era was just coming into its own as a cosmopolitan destination of the international jet set as well as earnest American educators seeking to modernize Arab society. The disruptive forces of the Middle East-the Cold War, the Palestinian conflict, religious extremism, the money and oil of the Gulf-were only just beginning to appear. In this haunting and beautifully written memoir of his Lebanese childhood, the late Middle East scholar, Fouad Ajami, casts a discerning light into the corners and alleyways of an Arab reality that would later erupt into full view.

At a time when it is America's leading candidate for the star role of Armageddon, Los Angeles still reigns as the destination par excellence and de facto trendsetter for the United States. Despite its curse of ancient and modern-day plagues-what other city can claim the rights to earthquakes and smog as well as riots and gang warfare?-Los Angeles remains the mythical source for the blood flowing through the American heart: the "pot of gold" that lies on the other coast of the rainbow. In Translating LA, Peter Theroux leads us beyond the rainbow in an affectionate and anecdotal guide to the human centers of Los Angeles. By bringing LA's thousand-and-one ethnic enclaves together with its broad range of social classes, Theroux understands LA by stretching across its fault lines with results that are "surprising and illuminating" (LA Reader). With its genuine sensitivity towards past, present, and future, Translating LA searches the souls of Angelenos to deliver a remarkable commentary on America's most complex and diverse city.