The Picnic at Sakkara

The Picnic at Sakkara is a 1955 novel by P. H. Newby. It is about a lecturer at Cairo University, Edgar Perry, during the rule of King Farouk. He becomes tutor to a pasha, and is swept into a conflict between Western ways and the Moslem Brotherhood. It is a comedic novel. It is the first novel of the Anglo-Egyptian comic trilogy, the others being Revolution and Roses and A Guest and His Going.

Reception

Anthony Thwaite called it "wonderful", and said that it was Newby's "most successful and memorable achievement." Kirkus Reviews, however, found it to be "idiosyncratic" and an acquired taste.