Before the Throne

Zusatztext “Mahfouz is a storyteller of the first order in any idiom.” — Vanity Fair Informationen zum Autor Naguib Mahfouz Klappentext Nearly sixty of Egypt's past leaders-from the time of the Pharoahs to the twentieth century-are summoned to judgment in the Court of Osiris in the Afterlife, in this extraordinary novel by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz. Before the Throne calls forth a parade of those who have shaped the modern nation of Egypt-from the ruler who first unified Egypt in 3000 BC to Anwar Sadat, the president assassinated by religious extremists in 1981, and including figures as various as the famous pharaoh Ramesses II and the medieval vizier Qaraqush. As they defend their decisions under questioning by Osiris, Isis, and Horus, those who acted for the nation's good are honored with immortality in paradise while those who failed to protect it are condemned either to the inferno or to "the place of insignificance." Full of Mahfouz's unique insight into his country's timeless qualities, this provocative work skillfully traces five thousand years of Egypt's past as it flows into the turbulent present. Translated from the Arabic by Raymond Stock 1. The court gathered in its divine entirety within the Hall of Justice, whose high walls were adorned with writing in the sacred hieroglyphic script, under a gilded ceiling in whose heavens gleamed the dreams of all humankind. In the center of the hall Osiris reposed on his golden throne; to his right was Isis, and to his left Horus, each seated on their own thrones. Not far from Osiris’s feet squatted Thoth, Scribe of the Gods, the Book of All laid open across his thighs. Meanwhile, chairs plated with pure gold were arrayed on both sides of the hall, ready to receive those whose ultimate fates now would be written.   To commence the proceedings, Osiris declaimed, “From the remotest past, it has been decreed that humans shall spend their lives on earth. All the while, there would go with them, even over the threshold of death—like a shadow that clings to them—a record of all their acts and desires, embodied on their naked forms. Finally, there would be held a detailed dialog that would end with a decisive word. This, then, is that trial, convened after the passage of the allotted span of time.”   Osiris then signaled to Horus, and the youth called out with a booming voice, “King Menes!”   From the door at the farthest end of the hall, a man entered, attired in his burial shroud, though his head and feet were bare. With clear features and a powerful form, he drew closer and closer to Osiris’s throne, until he stood three arms’ lengths from it, in a stance of stark humility.   At this, Osiris beckoned to the divine scribe Thoth, who began to read from the book before him, “The mightiest monarch of the First Dynasty, he warred on the Libyans until he subdued them. He attacked Lower Egypt, joining it to southern Egypt, declaring himself king of all Egypt together, crowning himself with the Double Crown. He altered the course of the Nile, establishing the city of Memphis on the new land this formed.”   Addressing Menes, Osiris demanded, “Tell us what you have to say.”   “Thoth, your sacred scribbler, has condensed my life in words,” Menes replied. “How easy is the telling, and how hard was the doing!”   “We have our own view of how to appraise rulers and their deeds,” Osiris warned him. “Do not waste time by praising yourself.”   “I inherited rule of the southern kingdom from my family,” Menes said. “With it I inherited a mighty dream—which all of our early men and women shared—to cleanse the country of foreign intruders, and establish an eternal unity whose two wings would be the lands of southern and northern Egypt.   “The voice of my paternal aunt, Awuz, was the prime moving force that ignited this awesome dream. She would gaze at me with con...

Product details

• Authors: Naguib Mahfouz
• Assisted by: Raymond Stock (Translation)
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.07.2012
• EAN: 9780307742568
• ISBN: 978-0-307-74256-8
• No. of pages: 176
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 202 mm x 13 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Non-fiction book