The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz

Review by Abby Hawkins

The Short:

After spending four years in prison, career thief Said Mahran reenters society with plans to exact revenge on his friends and family he believes have betrayed him, spiraling into a dramatic downfall.

The Long:

In The Thief and the Dogs, anti-hero Said Mahran is freed from prison and enters a post-revolutionary Egypt, expecting an improved society and a chance at a better life. However, these hopes are almost immediately dashed as he finds that his ex-wife Nabawiyya has married his old friend, IIish Sidra, and his past mentor and a former revolutionary has become a member of the social elite, sparking Mahran’s spiral into revenge. Mahran’s inability to focus on anything other than retaliation leads to a multitude of miscalculations, eventually pushing him past hopes for redemption. Mahfouz uses the characters of his novella to compare the progressive, new opportunities of a post-revolutionary society with the remaining social inequalities and unmaterialized hopes and dreams of those who the revolution left behind. Written to reflect Mahran’s stream of consciousness throughout the events of the book, readers experience the immediate thought-to-action mindset of the protagonist as it drives the plot in an unpredictable, thrilling, fast pace.

To read or not to read:

Read! While the novella is only 162 pages, Mahfouz is able to pack themes of existentialism, surrealism, betrayal, revenge, and tragedy in a story that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish through its use of stream-of-consciousness writing. The Thief and the Dogs is the type of book best appreciated when read multiple times, as details offering new meaning to the story can often be found even on the third or fourth read.