"The Days" is a three-part autobiography of Taha Hussein, one of modern Egypt's greatest writers and thinkers. "An Egyptian Childhood" (1929) tells of Hussein's childhood in a small village in Upper Egypt, as he learned to come to terms with his blindness and win a place at Cairo's prestigious Azhar University. "The Stream of Days: A Student at the Azhar" (1939), is an enthralling picture of student life in Egypt in the early 1900s. "A Passage to France" (1973), carries the story on to his attainment of a doctorate at the Sorbonne.