It is not for nothing that the four parts of the novel-tetralogy "Alexandria Quartet" bear the names of their main characters. The reader can look at the same events - the life of Egyptian Alexandria before and during World War II - through the eyes of completely different people. The decline of colonialism, the anti-British revolt, political and private life - phenomena and people become much clearer when you can see them from different angles. The author himself called the tetralogy an experiment in the study of the continuum and subject-object relationships on the material of modern love.

The text of this edition was revised by the translator V. Mikhailin and supplemented with an introductory article and comments.