Ancient Evenings is a novel by American author Norman Mailer

Norman Mailer

Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...

. It deals with the lives of two protagonists, one young, one old, in a very alien Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

 marked by journeys by the dead, reincarnation

Reincarnation

Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...

, and violent and hyper-sexual gods and mortals in a complex combination of historical fiction, allegory, poetic flight, confession and spiritual meditation.

The novel had an extremely mixed critical reception marked by a preponderance of negative reviews.

William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

 acknowledged "Norman Mailer and his Ancient Evenings, for inspiration" in his 1987 novel The Western Lands

The Western Lands

The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs, published in 1987, is a novel which is the final part of the trilogy that begins with Cities of the Red Night and The Place of Dead Roads. The title refers to the western bank of the Nile River, which in Egyptian mythology is the Land of the Dead...

.

The novel has gained popularity in Turkey due to its resemblance to the novel My Name is Red

My Name is Red

My Name Is Red is a 1998 Turkish novel by Nobel laureate author Orhan Pamuk. The English translation won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003,. The French version won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and the Italian version the Premio Grinzane Cavour in 2002...

 by the Nobel Prize winner Turkish author Orhan Pamuk

Orhan Pamuk

Ferit Orhan Pamuk , generally known simply as Orhan Pamuk, is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing....

. Pamuk was accused of plagiarizing many parts of the novel.