Our neighborhood boys

Author: Naguib Mahfouz Number of pages: 568 pages Summary: Children of Our Alley by Naguib Mahfouz ... "Children of Our Alley" is considered one of his most famous novels and was one of the works highlighted when he was awarded the Nobel Prize. The novel sparked widespread controversy since its serial publication in Al-Ahram newspaper in 1959, and it was first published as a book by Dar Al-Adab in Beirut in 1962. It was not published in Egypt until late 2006. The novel "Children of Our Alley" was the reason for an attempted assassination of Naguib Mahfouz, specifically in 1994, a day after the anniversary of the award — he was attacked and stabbed in the neck by two extremists outside his house in Cairo, and he survived, but suffered from its consequences until his death in 2006. The novel follows the Jabalawi family, who live in a large house surrounded by gardens and high walls, and around them are their children and grandchildren fighting over the endowment, while the thugs control the alley and prevent the Jabalawi children from reaching their earthly paradise. Despite their poverty and the injustice they face, they do not lose hope that Jabalawi will come out of his isolation to distribute his inheritance and free them from the thugs' tyranny.