Karnak Café

by: Naguib Mahfouz

Published by: Anchor Books

Reviewed by Krista Quinn

Karnak Café is Nobel Prize winning author Naguib Mahfouz’s prosaic novella about a group of regular patrons at a café in Cairo, Egypt in the late 1960s. First published in 1974, 2007 marks the first time Karnak Café has been published in English.

The plot follows the unnamed narrator as he discovers the magical Karnak Café and its owner, the beautiful and somewhat famous former belly dancer, Qurunfula. He immediately takes a liking to the café, enjoying its coffee and décor, and the cast of characters he meets there. Of the most intriguing people he encounters are three young college students: Ismail and his beautiful girlfriend Zaynab, and their friend Hilmi, who is engaged in a love affair with Qurunfula. The group of customers becomes friends amidst the backdrop of political unrest in Egypt.

One day the three students fail to show up at Karnak, and the other patrons realize they have been arrested as a result of the new government. They return months later, changed. And then they are captured for a second time. Again they return, changed even more. After the third time they are captured, the regulars at the café begin to wonder how long any of the young ones can survive imprisonment, and how they, the ones left behind, can cope with the uncertainty of the future. When the young people’s torturer shows up in Karnack Café one day, he blurs the line between criminal and victim even further.

The plot of the novel is interesting and the prose is nothing short of poetic, but for someone not familiar with Egyptian affairs of state in the 1960s and 1970s, the political aspects of the storyline can be difficult to follow. Past the politics though, lay beautifully developed characters, complex relationships, and universal truths that transcend race and time, and this is where the true beauty of Mahfouz’s writing shines through.

Armchair Interviews says: Beautifully written.