From the Foreword by Nadine Gordimer: "These pieces are meditations which echo that which was, has been, and is the writer Mahfouz. They are—in the words of the title of one of the prose pieces—'The Dialogue of the Late Afternoon' of his life. I don't believe any autobiography, with its inevitable implication of self-presentation, could have matched what we have here." With more than 500,000 copies of his books in print, Naguib Mahfouz has established a following of readers for whom provides a unique opportunity to catch an intimate glimpse into the life and mind of this magnificent storyteller.  Here, in his first work of nonfiction ever to be published in the United States, Mahfouz considers the myriad perplexities of existence, including preoccupations with old age, death, and life's transitory nature.  A surprising and delightful departure from his bestselling and much-loved fiction, this unusual and thoughtful book is breathtaking evidence of the fact that Naguib Mahfouz is not only a "storyteller of the first order" ( ), but also a profound  thinker of the first order.