A thriller in form, a political and ethical analysis in substance. A professional thief and would-be killer, Said is an Egyptian Robin Hood whose thefts are motivated by powerful egalitarian principles, as well as by bitterness. His burning desire for revenge against those who betrayed him to the police carries him to the heights and depths of Cairo society during the early years of the Revolution.

Naguib Mahfouz was born in 1911 in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliya. He wrote nearly 40 novel-length works, plus hundreds of short stories and numerous cinema plots and scenarios. He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. He died in Cairo on August 30, 2006 at the age of 94.