Naguib Mahfouz

Who is Naguib Mahfouz?

Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian novelist born in the Gamaliya quarter of Cairo, widely regarded as the foremost figure of modern Arabic literature. He studied philosophy at what is now Cairo University and spent decades working as a civil servant while writing prolifically in the evenings. His major achievement, the Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street), traces three generations of a Cairo family through the political upheavals of the early twentieth century. His allegorical novel Children of the Alley (Awlad Haratina) provoked controversy for its religious symbolism and was banned in parts of the Arab world. In 1988 he became the first Arabic-language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1994 he survived a stabbing attack by extremists that damaged the nerves of his writing hand. He wrote more than thirty novels and hundreds of short stories, and died in Cairo in 2006.

Sources: Naguib Mahfouz, The Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk 1956, Palace of Desire 1957, Sugar Street 1957) · The Nobel Prize in Literature 1988 official biography, nobelprize.org · Rasheed El-Enany, Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning (1993)