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@@
@@HDecember 11, 1911(1911-12-11
Cairo, Egypt August 30,
@@H2006(2006-08-30) (aged 94
Cairo, Egypt Novelist Egyptian
The Cairo Trilogy Nobel Prize
@@Hin Literature (1988

@@
@@Naguib Mahfouz
(Arabic:@, Nagīb Maḥfūẓ)
(December 11, 1911 – August 30,
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2006) was an Egyptian writer

who won the 1988 Nobel Prize
for Literature. He is regarded
as one of the first contemporary
writers of Arabic literature,
along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to
explore themes of
existentialism.[1] He published
over 50 novels, over 350 short
stories, dozens of movie scripts,
and five plays over a 70-year
career. Many of his works have
been made into Egyptian and
@@Nforeign films
@@
@@
@@Biography
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@@
@@Early life and education
@@
@@
Born into a lower middle-class
Muslim family in the
Gamaleyya quarter of Cairo,
Mahfouz was named after
Professor Naguib Pasha
Mahfouz (1882–1974), the
renowned Coptic physician who
delivered him. Mahfouz was the
seventh and the youngest child
in a family that had five boys
and two girls. The family lived
in two popular districts of the
town, in el-Gamaleyya, from
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where they moved in 1924 to el-

Abbaseyya, then a new Cairo
suburb; both provided the
backdrop for many of
Mahfouz's writings. His father,
whom Mahfouz described as
having been "old-fashioned",
was a civil servant, and
Mahfouz eventually followed in
his footsteps. In his childhood
Mahfouz read extensively. His
mother often took him to
museums and Egyptian history
later became a major theme in
@@{many of his books.[2
@@

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The Mahfouz family were

devout Muslims and Mahfouz
had a strictly Islamic
upbringing. In an interview, he
painfully elaborated on the
stern religious climate at home
during his childhood years. He
stated that "You would never
have thought that an artist
would emerge from that
@@{family."[2
@@
The Egyptian Revolution of
1919 had a strong effect on
Mahfouz, although he was at
the time only seven years old.
From the window he often saw
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British soldiers firing at the

demonstrators, men and women.
"You could say," he later noted,
"that the one thing which most
shook the security of my
childhood was the 1919
revolution." After completing
his secondary education,
Mahfouz entered King Fouad I
University (now the University
of Cairo), where he studied
philosophy, graduating in 1934.
By 1936, having spent a year
working on an M.A., he decided
to become a professional writer.
Mahfouz then worked as a
journalist at er-Risala, and
contributed to el-Hilal and Al-
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Ahram. The major Egyptian

influence on Mahfouz's
thoughts of science and
socialism in the 1930s was
Salama Moussa, the Fabian
@@Nintellectual
@@Civil service
@@
@@
Mahfouz left academia and
pursued a career in the Ministry
of Religious affairs. However,
he was soon moved to a role in
the Ministry of Culture as the
official responsible for the film
industry, due to his apparent
@@{atheism.[3
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@@
A longtime civil servant,
Mahfouz served in the Ministry
of Mortmain Endowments, then
as Director of Censorship in the
Bureau of Art, Director of the
Foundation for the Support of
the Cinema, and finally as a
consultant to the Ministry of
@@NCulture
@@
Mahfouz left his post as the
Director of Censorship and was
appointed Director of the
Foundation for the Support of
the Cinema. He was a
contributing editor for the
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leading newspaper Al-Ahram

and in 1969 he became a
consultant to the Ministry of
@@NCulture, retiring in 1972
@@edit] Marriage}
@@
@@
Mahfouz remained a bachelor
until the age of 43. The reason
for his late marriage was that he
laboured under his conviction
that with its numerous
restrictions and limitations,
marriage would hamper his
literary future. In 1954, he
married an Egyptian woman,

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with whom he had two

@@Ndaughters
@@
He published 34 novels, over
350 short stories, dozens of
movie scripts and five plays
over a 70-year career. Many of
his works have been made into
Egyptian films. He was a board
member of the publisher Dar
el-Ma'aref. Many of his novels
were ******ized in Al-Ahram,
and his writings also appeared
in his weekly column, "Point of
View". Before the Nobel Prize
only a few of his novels had
@@Nappeared in the West
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@@Clash with fundamentalists

@@
@@
Mahfouz did not shrink from
controversy outside of his work.
As a consequence of his
outspoken support for Sadat's
Camp David peace treaty with
Israel in 1978, his books were
banned in many Arab countries
until after he won the Nobel
@@NPrize
@@
Like many Egyptian writers
and intellectuals, Mahfouz was
on an Islamic fundamentalist
"death list". He defended
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Salman Rushdie after Ayatollah

Ruhollah Khomeini condemned
Rushdie to death in 1989, but
also criticized his Satanic
Verses as "insulting" to Islam.
Mahfouz believed in freedom of
expression and although he did
not personally agree with
Rushdie's work, he did not
believe that there should be a
fatwa condemning him to death
for it. He also condemned
Khomeini for issuing the fatwa,
for he did not believe that the
Ayatollah was representing
@@NIslam
@@
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In 1989, after Ayatollah

Ruhollah Khomeini's fatwa
calling for Salman Rushdie and
his publishers to be killed,
Mahfouz called Khomeini a
terrorist.[4] Shortly after
Mahfouz joined 80 other
intellectuals in declaring that
"no blasphemy harms Islam and
Muslims so much as the call for
@@{murdering a writer."[5
@@Attempted assassination
@@
@@
The appearance of The Satanic
Verses brought back up the
controversy surrounding
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Mahfouz's novel Children of

Gebelawi. Death threats against
Mahfouz followed, including
one from the "blind sheikh,"
Egyptian theologian Omar
Abdul-Rahman. Like Rushdie,
Mahfouz was given police
protection, but in 1994 Islamic
extremists almost succeeded in
assassinating the 82-year-old
novelist by stabbing him in the
neck outside his Cairo home.
He survived, permanently
affected by damage to nerves in
his right hand. After the
incident Mahfouz was unable to
write for more than a few
minutes a day and consequently
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produced fewer and fewer

works. Subsequently, he lived
under constant bodyguard
protection. Finally, in the
beginning of 2006, the novel
was published in Egypt with a
preface written by Ahmad
@@NKamal Aboul-Magd
@@
After the threats, Mahfouz
stayed in Cairo with his lawyer
Nabil Mounier Habib .
Mahfouz and Habib would
spend most of their time in
Habib's office; Mahfouz used
Habib's library as a reference
for most of his books. Mahfouz
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stayed with Habib until his

@@Ndeath
@@Death and funeral
@@
@@
Prior to his death, Mahfouz was
the oldest living Nobel
Literature laureate and the third
oldest of all time, trailing only
Bertrand Russell and Halldor
Laxness. At the time of his
death, he was the only Arabic-
language writer to have won the
@@NNobel Prize
@@
@@
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In July 2006, Mahfouz

sustained an injury to his head
as a result of a fall. He
remained ill until his death on
August 30, 2006 in a Cairo
@@Nhospital
@@
In his old age Mahfouz became
nearly blind, and though he
continued to write, he had
difficulties in holding a pen or
a pencil. He also had to
abandon his daily habit of
meeting his friends at
coffeehouses. Prior to his
death, he suffered from a

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bleeding ulcer, kidney

@@Nproblems, and cardiac failure
@@
Mahfouz was accorded a state
funeral with full military
honors on August 31, 2006. His
funeral took place in the el-
Rashdan Mosque in Nasr City
@@Nin Cairo
@@
Mahfouz dreamed that all of the
social classes of Egypt,
including the very poor, would
join his funeral procession.
However, attendance was
tightly restricted by the
Egyptian government amid
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protest by mourners.[citation
@@{needed
Views, writing style, and
@@themes
@@
@@
Most of Mahfouz's early works
were set in el-Gamaleyya.
Abath Al-Aqdar (Mockery of
the Fates) (1939), Rhadopis
(1943), and Kifah Tibah (The
Struggle of Thebes) (1944), were
historical novels, written as part
of a larger unfulfilled project of
30 novels. Inspired by Sir
Walter Scott (1771–1832)
Mahfouz planned to cover the
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whole history of Egypt in a

series of books. However,
following the third volume,
Mahfouz shifted his interest to
the present, the psychological
impact of the social change on
@@Nordinary people
@@
Mahfouz's central work in the
1950s was the Cairo Trilogy, an
immense monumental work of
1,500 pages, which the author
completed before the July
Revolution. The novels were
titled with the street names
Palace Walk, Palace of Desire,
and Sugar Street. Mahfouz set
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the story in the parts of Cairo

where he grew up. They depict
the life of the patriarch el-
Sayyed Ahmed Abdel Gawad
and his family over three
generations, from World War I
to the 1950s, when King Farouk
I was overthrown. With its rich
variety of characters and
psychological understanding,
the work connected Mahfouz to
such authors as Balzac,
Dickens, Tolstoy, and
Galsworthy. Mahfouz ceased to
write for some years after
finishing the trilogy.
Disappointed in the Nasser
régime, which had overthrown
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the monarchy in 1952, he

started publishing again in 1959,
now prolifically pouring out
novels, short stories,
journalism, memoirs, essays,
@@Nand screenplays
@@
Tharthara Fawq Al Neel
("Gossips on the Nile"; 1966) is
one of his most popular novels.
It was later made into a film
featuring a cast of top actors
during the time of president
Anwar al-Sadat. The film/story
criticizes the decadence of
Egyptian society during the
Nasser era. It was banned by
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Sadat to avoid provocation of

Egyptians who still loved
former president Nasser.
Copies were hard to find prior
to the late 1990s. Mahfouz's
prose is characterised by the
blunt expression of his ideas.
His written works covered a
broad range of topics, including
socialism, homosexuality, and
God. Writing about some of the
subjects was prohibited in
@@NEgypt
@@
The Children of Gebelawi
(1959, also known as "Children
of our Alley") one of Mahfouz's
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best known works, has been

banned in Egypt for alleged
blasphemy over its allegorical
portrayal of God and the
monotheistic Abrahamic faiths
of Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam, until the ban was
released in 2006. It portrayed
the patriarch Gebelaawi and his
children, average Egyptians
living the lives of Cain and
Abel, Moses, Jesus, and
Mohammed. Gebelawi has built
a mansion in an oasis in the
middle of a barren desert; his
estate becomes the scene of a
family feud which continues for
generations. "Whenever
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someone is depressed, suffering

or humiliated, he points to the
mansion at the top of the alley
at the end opening out to the
desert, and says sadly, 'That is
our ancestor's house, we are all
his children, and we have a
right to his property. Why are
we starving? What have we
done?'" The book was banned
throughout the Arab world,
except in Lebanon, and in
Egypt where the novel was
published in 2006. In the 1960s,
Mahfouz further developed its
theme that humanity is moving
further away from God in his
existentialist novels. In The
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Thief and the Dogs (1961) he

depicted the fate of a Marxist
thief, who has been released
@@Nfrom prison and plans revenge
@@
In the 1960s and 1970s Mahfouz
began to construct his novels
more freely and to use interior
monologues. In Miramar (1967)
he developed a form of multiple
first-person narration. Four
narrators, among them a
Socialist and a Nasserite
opportunist, represent different
political views. In the center of
the story is an attractive servant
girl. In Arabian Nights and
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Days (1981) and in The Journey

of Ibn Fatouma (1983) Mahfouz
drew on traditional Arabic
narratives as subtexts.
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
(1985) is about conflict between
old and new religious truths, a
theme with which Mika Waltari
dealt in Finland in his
historical novel Sinuhe (1945,
@@NHtrans. The Egyptian
@@
Many of his novels were first
published in ******ized form,
including Children of Gebelawi
and Midaq Alley which was
adapted into a Mexican film
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starring Salma Hayek (El

@@NHcallejón de los milagros
@@
Mahfouz described the
development of his country in
the 20th-century. He combined
intellectual and cultural
influences from East and West
- his own exposure to the
literarature of non-Egyptian
culture began in his youth with
the enthusiastic consumption of
Western detective stories,
Russian classics, and such
modernist writers as Marcel
Proust, Franz Kafka and James
Joyce. Mahfouz's stories,
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written in the florid classical

Arabic, are almost always set in
the heavily populated urban
quarters of Cairo, where his
characters, mostly ordinary
people, try to cope with the
modernization of society and
the temptations of Western
@@Nvalues
@@Political influence
@@
@@
Most of Mahfouz's writings
mainly dealt with politics, a
fact which he himself once
emphasized: "In all my
writings, you will find politics.
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You may find a story which

ignores love or any other
subject, but not politics; it is
the very axis of our
thinking".[6] He greatly
espoused Egyptian nationalism
in many of his works, and
expressed sympathies for the
post-World-War era Wafd
Party. He was also attracted to
socialist and democratic ideals
early on in his youth. The
influence of Socialist ideals is
strongly reflected in his first
two novels, Al-Khalili and New
Cairo, and also in many of his
latter works. However, in spite
of his firm belief in socialism,
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Mahfouz was never a Marxist

@@Nin any sense of the word
@@
Parallel to his sympathy for
socialism and democracy was
his antipathy towards Islamic
extremism as expressed by the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
He strongly criticized radical
Islam in his works and
contrasted between the merits
of Socialism and the demerits of
Islamic extremism in his first
two novels. He perceived
Islamism as critically
delineated and rejected it as
unsuitable for all times. In his
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memoirs, he stated that out of

all the forces active in Egyptian
politics during his youth, he
always despised the Muslim
@@NBrotherhood
@@
Mahfouz had personally known
Sayyid Qutb in his youth, then
showing a greater interest in
literary criticism than in
Islamic fundamentalism; Qutb
later became a significant
influence on the Muslim
Brotherhood. In fact, Qutb was
one of the first critics to
recognize Mahfouz's talent in
the mid-1940s. Mahfouz even
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visited Qutb when the latter was

in the hospital, during the 60s,
near the end of his life. In his
semi-autobiographical novel,
Mirrors, he drew a very
negative portrait of Sayyid
@@NQutb
@@
He was greatly disillusioned
with the 1952 revolution and by
Egypt's defeat in the 1967 Six-
Day War. He opposed the 1952
revolution not because of its
principles, but because he felt
that the practices failed to live
@@Nup to them
@@Works
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@@
@@ò¹†ÔÛa@Š–ß@HOld Egypt (1932
@HWhisper of Madness (1938
@@æìä¦a@àç
@HMockery of the Fates (1939
@@‰a†Óþa@sjÇ
@HRhadopis of Nubia (1943
@@îië…a‰
@HThe Struggle of Thebes (1944
@@òjî@€bÐ×
@@ñ†í†¦a@ñŠçbÔÛa@HModern Cairo (1945
@@ïÜîܨa@æbHKhan El-Khalili (1945
@@Ö†½a@ÖbÓ‹@HMidaq Alley (1947
@@laŠŽÛa@HThe Mirage (1948
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The Beginning and The End

@@òíbèãë@òía†i@H(1950
@@òîqýrÛa@HCairo Trilogy (1956–57
@@å튖ÔÛa@´i@HPalace Walk (1956
@Š–Ó@HPalace of Desire (1957
@@Öì’Ûa
@@òíŠØŽÛa@HSugar Street (1957
@HChildren of Gebelawi (1959
@@bäm‰by@…üëc
@HThe Thief and the Dogs (1961
@@lýØÛaë@—ÜÛa
@æbàŽÛa@HQuail and Autumn (1962
@@Ñ튨aë
@@
a@bîã…@HGod's World (1962

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@@HZaabalawi (1963
@@ÕíŠİÛa@HThe Search (1964
@@‡bz’Ûa@HThe Beggar (1965
@ÖìÏ@ñŠqŠq@HAdrift on the Nile (1966
@@ÝîäÛa
@@‰bßaß@HMiramar (1967
The Pub of the Black Cat
@@…ìþa@ÁÔÛa@ñ‰b¼@H(1969
A story without a beginning or
@òía†i@ýi@òíbØy@Han ending (1971
@@òíbèã@üë
@Šè‘@HThe Honeymoon (1971
@@ݎÈÛa
@@bíaŠ½a@HMirrors (1972

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@k§a@HLove under the rain (1973

@@Šİ½a@o¤
@@򹊦a@HThe Crime (1973
@@ÙãŠØÛa@Hal-Karnak (1974
@@âa@ñŠšy@HRespected Sir (1975
@òàzÜß@HThe Harafish (1977
@@“îÏaŠ§a
Love above the Pyramid
@òjšç@ÖìÏ@k§a@HPlateau (1979
@@âŠa
@HThe Devil Preaches (1979
@@ÅÈí@æbİî’Ûa
@Š–Ç@HLove and the Veil (1980
@@k§a

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@HArabian Nights and Days (1981

@@òÜîÛ@ÑÛc@ïÛbîÛ
@@òjÔÛa@€aŠÏc@HWedding Song (1981
@ïÓbjÛa@HOne hour remains (1982
@@òÇb@åߌÛa@åß
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
@@òßìİÏ@åia@òÜy‰@H(1983
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth
@@òÔîÔ§a@óÏ@“öbÈÛa@H(1985
The Day the Leader was Killed
@@áîÇŒÛa@ÝnÔß@âìí@H(1985
@HThe Hunger (Al-Go'a) (1986
@@Êì¦a
Speaking the morning and
@@õbŽ½aë@€bj–Ûa@sí†y@Hevening (1987
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@@HFountain and Tomb (1988

Echoes of an Autobiography
@@H(1994
Dreams of the Rehabilitation
@@òçbÔäÛa@ñÏ@âýyc@HPeriod (2004
@@HThe Seventh Heaven (2005
@@the mummy awakens
L

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