The Egyptain

Internationally speaking, The Egyptian is the best-known Finnish novel; it has been translated into 25 languages and filmed in Hollywood. It was the first of Waltari's many historical novels. As a newly-born baby Sinuhe is placed in a tarred reed boat and allowed to float down the River Nile. It was the custom in the metropolis of Thebes that in the pharaoh's house of women only his wife was allowed to give birth to a boy child. The wife of the paupers' physician in Thebes finds Sinuhe and raises him as her own son. The boy grows up and becomes a doctor like his foster-father. But fate has other things in store for Sinuhe: he is to travel the world. The beautiful courtesan Nefer-nefernefer tricks Sinuhe out his possessions and honour, and drives him into exile in Syria. There, Sinuhe makes good as a physician and befriends the pharaoh's ambitious military commander Horemheb. As Horemheb's spy, and driven on by his own restless heart, he sets off to...