The setting of The Picnic at Sakkara, a delightful comedy, is Egypt in the days of King Farouk. Edgar Perry, a lecturer at Cairo University, finds himself in a world on all sides less well-ordered than himself. His own wife deceives herself, it not him; his illustrious private pupil, Tureiya Pasha, encourages him to believe in something like a mirage; his students, in the intervals of hearing from him about the beauties of George Eliot, take part in violent political demonstrations; and one of them, Muawiya Khaslat, an attractive rogue hardly able to reconcile his devotion to Perry with his membership of the Moslem Brotherhood, almost turns the picnic into a tragedy.
Newby's Egypt is more than credible and wholly entertaining.
'The light but intelligent novel is always a rare and attractive bird. Such a novel is The Picnic at Sakkara - a book that combines gaiety and shrewdness, a sense of fun and a sense of drama, that treats an important and absorbing subject in a light-hearted and light-handed way.' Daily Mail
'His most successful novel.' Times
- ISBN10 0571080022
- ISBN13 9780571080021
- Publish Date December 1967 (first published December 1964)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 9 June 1994
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 240
- Language English