SOURCE: “Tapestry of Tales,” in Chicago Tribune Books, February 11, 1996, pp. 1, 11.

In the following positive review, Mesic praises Children of the Alley as a skillful and fresh combination of allegory, historical fiction, and myth.

Out of a timeless oral tradition, of stories so old history and myth are braided into one, comes a rich tapestry of tales, each complete in itself, that interlock as do the stories of the Arabian Nights. Each chapter of Children of the Alley encapsulates a life, presenting the whole trajectory of a character's development, actions and their consequences. The alley of the title is peopled by petty merchants and the poor—snake charmers, jam sellers, shepherds and carpenters, murderers and the pure of heart—but all claim descent from one noble household, from which their tribe was long ago evicted.

Naguib Mahfouz is absolutely specific in showing the details of these lives. Small cucumbers...