Naguib Mahfouz is a favorite author of mine. His Arabic tails base themselves on real living in Egypt. Sadly, this nobel prize laureate has recently passed away on August 30, 2006. But his words live on.
Wedding Song is a wonderfully quick read, but designed with characters described so that you could imagine meeting them on the street. The story is broken up into four sections. Each section is told by a different character of the story, from his/her perspective. The setting is Egypt, at an actor's theatre. What is interesting is how a person's point of view changes the reader's perception. The wedding song is about the son of two actors of the theatre marrying an older actress of the theatre and the lives that are affected because of it. (An Arabic man marrying an older woman is considered a huge faux pas.) Masterfully crafted, this story is sad, to be sure, and not a typical 'wedding song' one recently married would recommend as a 'pick-me-up'. But Mahfouz's stories are hardly any one should pass up.
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