"In the course of my long travels I have never seen a city so devastated. After a long time I ventured out into the streets. Death, cold and heavy, hung in the air. Walls have no value here, doors have been eliminated. No one is certain that they will see another day."The Egypt of the Mamluk dynasty witnessed a period of artistic ostentation and social and political upheaval, at the heart of which lay the unsolved question of the ruler's legitimacy. Now, in 1516, the Mamluk reign is coming to an end with the advance of the invading. Ottomans. The numerous narrators, among them a Venetian traveler and several native Muslims, tell the story of the rise to power of the ruthless, enigmatic, and puritanical governor of Cairo, Zayni Barakat ibn Musa, whose control of the corrupt city is effected only through a complicated network of spies and informers.
杰马勒·基塔尼（Gamal al-Ghitani 1945-2015）出生在埃及苏哈吉省一个贫苦家庭，早年曾从事地毯设计，60年代做过战地记者，自1993年起长期担任《文学消息报》主编。一生创作了五十多部作品，不少被翻译成20多种文字，其中《吉尼·巴拉卡特》被阿拉伯作协选入20世纪阿拉伯百部优秀小说。