The Search

In The Search a young man, hoping to escape a sordid background and an impoverished future, sets out to find the father he has never known. But in the course of his quest he becomes entangled with two women and is enticed into murder. The significance of the novel lies mainly in its symbolic nature and in its possible readings: is the young man searching for his roots, for religious belief, for national traditions, or for political identity? NAGUIB MAHFOUZ, born in 1911, has written over thirty novels and more than a hundred short stories. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. Today he lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters.

Cover art by Anna Boghiguian, 1999.
The American University in Cairo Press