Description
Book SynopsisIn Before the Throne, Naguib Mahfouz summons nearly sixty of Egypt's rulers to the afterlife Court of Osiris, from a king who unified Egypt for the first time, around 3000 BC, to a president assassinated by religious extremists in 1981. He includes names as familiar as the pharaoh Ramesses II and as obscure as the medieval vizier Qaraqush. Defending their behaviour before the divine tribunal, those who acted for the nation's good are honoured with immortality, but those who failed to protect it leave the gilded hall of eternal justice with a very different verdict. Full of Mahfouz's unique insight into his country's timeless qualities, this controversial work skillfully traces five thousand years of Egypt's past as it flows into the present, through the mind of its most acclaimed author.
Trade Review"In brevity and in profundity, the Egyptian Nobel Laureate has written a remarkable book in which a long line of Egyptian leaders stand before the throne at the day of judgment. From the Pharaohs to Sadat, each is presented before trial at the gates of the afterlife, and their accomplishments weighed. This book is a mixture of Machiavellian discourse on leadership, of theology and what it takes to gain entry (as well as the complicating factor of multiple religious systems over the course of Egyptian history), and of insight into Mahfouz's perspectives on these topics. It is a slim volume, and each trial" is handled deftly." - The Global Ministries
