Surreal, magical, often darkly funny short stories that explore the nature of good and evil as characters, including Adolf Hitler and the Devil, slip between modern Egypt and other worlds. The title story seems to be a cross between Alice Sebold's 'The Lovely Bones' and Philip Jose Farmer's 'Fabulous Riverboat'; - not forgetting the Egyptian setting. Highly recommended, but unless you are already familiar with Mahfouz's work, I would advise reading the introduction because, for me, it brought down the book's difficulty level by 3 points.
