Najib Mahfuz (born 1912) was Egypt's foremost novelist and the first Arab to win the Nobel Prize in literature. He had wide influence in the Arab world and was the author from that area best known to ...
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Naguib Mahfouz is widely regarded as Egypt's finest writer. While his works remained largely unknown in English-speaking countries for most of the twentieth century, the author has nevertheless been v...
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In the following essay, Shammas discusses Mahfouz as an Arabic novelist and considers his influence on Arabic literature.
In the acceptance speech he sent to the Nobel Prize committee to substitute fo...
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In the following review, Castronova offers a positive assessment of Palace of Desire.
This grand-scale novel of Cairo life in the 1920s—weighing in with the heft and detail of a nineteenth-cent...
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In the following positive review, Dickey praises the political background and insights in Sugar Street.
Beggars groped for alms outside the al-Hussein mosque in Cairo. Their feet were bandaged, their ...
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In the following positive review, Irwin examines the dominant themes of Sugar Street.
Sukkariya, or Sugar Street, is situated just inside the Zuweyla Gate, built by the Fatimids to protect medieval Ca...
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In the following review, Lively offers a positive assessment of Sugar Street, comparing Mahfouz to John Galsworthy.
Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo trilogy, of which Sugar Street is the final volume, wa...
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In the following interview, Mahfouz discusses the role of politics and religion in his life and work, his attitude toward censorship, and his reaction to winning the Nobel Prize.
Naguib Mahfouz credit...
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In the following essay, Asfour surveys the critical reaction to Mahfouz's work.
No contemporary Arab man of letters has managed to preoccupy our literary mentality as much as Naguib Mahfouz. Hi...
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In the following mixed review, Allen discusses both the stories and the translation of Fountain and Tomb.
Published by an act of providence at almost the same moment as the announcement of the 1988 No...
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In the following essay, Matar discusses the controversy surrounding the homosexuality and homosexual issues that Mahfouz portrays in several of his novels.
Upon the publication of Midaq Alley in 1947,...
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In the following essay, Moosa evaluates Mahfouz's importance as a writer of historical novels and examines the dominant themes of his historical fiction.
Mahfouz began his literary career when ...
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In the following essay, Weaver considers the impact of religious and political events on Mahfouz's life and career—particularly the attempt on Mahfouz's life in 1994.
Naguib Mahfo...
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In the following essay, Moosa outlines the development of Mahfouz's literary style and thematic concerns.
Among the major figures in the development of modern Arabic fiction, none has received ...
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In the following review of Arabian Nights and Days, Mesic offers a positive assessment of Mahfouz's adaptation of The Arabian Nights.
At the heart of Arabian Nights and Days, an enthralling nov...
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In the following positive review, Mesic praises Children of the Alley as a skillful and fresh combination of allegory, historical fiction, and myth.
Out of a timeless oral tradition, of stories so old...
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In the following review, de Botton offers a generally favorable assessment of Echoes of an Autobiography.
This is an autobiography only in the loosest sense. We don't hear where the author was ...
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In the following review of Echoes of an Autobiography, El-Enany compliments the poetic nature of Mahfouz's autobiography and finds it reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zara...
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In the following essay, Milson traces Mahfouz's development as a writer and discusses his major thematic concerns.
What one cannot theorize about, one must narrate.
—Umberto Eco
I do no...
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In the following essay, Said considers the problems of English translations of Mahfouz's work, arguing that they miss the distinctive and direct nature of his narrative voice.
1.
Before he won ...
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In the following essay, Ghosh provides an overview of Mahfouz's life and career as well as evaluating his contribution to modern Arabic literature.
I.
In Egypt, the news that the writer Naguib ...
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In the following essay, Cole explores the cultural influences on Mahfouz's writing and his growing popularity as an author.
Teenagers playing dominoes and backgammon filled the cafés as ...
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In the following positive review of The Beginning and the End, The Thief and the Dogs, and Wedding Song, Taylor describes several reasons why American audiences cannot fully appreciate Mahfouz'...
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In the following review, Enright considers the strengths and weaknesses of several recent translations of Mahfouz's novels.
I shall consider these novels by Naguib Mahfouz in the order not of t...
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In the following review, Hussein explores how Palace of Desire serves as a bridge between Mahfouz's earlier works and his later, more cynical prose.
The severed head of Islam's most hono...
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In the following essay, Milson explores the contradictions in Mahfouz's career and work and traces his development as a writer of novels and short fiction.
Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian novelist...
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In the following essay, Somekh maintains that “Zabalawi” foreshadows themes and narrative techniques that recur in Mahfouz's later writing.
“Za‘balāwī,...
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In the following essay, Elad contends that Mahfouz utilizes mythic themes, Egyptian cultural elements, motifs from the work of Franz Kafka and Albert Camus, and Islamic ideology to illustrate the ...
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In the following essay, Allen explores the dominant themes of “Lovers' Quarter” and provides historical context for the story.
The steady stream of English translations that has b...
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In the following essay, which was originally published in 1971, ‘Atiyya traces Mahfouz's development as a short story writer.
Naguib Mahfouz is a novelist, yet his literary activity bega...
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In the following essay, which was originally published in 1974, Mikhail examines the portrayal of religion in Yusuf Idris's “Tabliyya min al-Samā’” and Mahfouz...
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In the following essay, Sakkout offers a thematic and stylistic analysis of Mahfouz's short fiction.
Although Najīb Maḥfūz is known above all as a novelist, he began his li...
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In the following essay, Somekh explicates Mahfouz's vision of Egypt and the human condition as evinced in his short fiction.
I
The Swedish Academy of Letters described the fiction of Naguib Mah...
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In the following excerpt, Gordon explores the struggle of Mahfouz's Egyptian characters to live an authentic and spiritual life.
I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the ...
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In the following excerpt, Mikhail considers the role of love in the short fiction of Mahfouz and Yusuf Idris.
Brief Encounters: Love and Initiation in the Stories of Idris and Mahfouz
As the relation ...
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In the following essay, El-Enany asserts that Mahfouz's short stories are “immensely valuable in highlighting particular aspects of his vision and reassuring the critic on the soundness ...
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In the following essay, Mikhail delineates the relationship between existentialism and Arab thought in Mahfouz's short fiction.
The relationship between existentialism and Arab thought has been...
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Hopes, dreams and aspirations are extremely significant to this novel, Midaq Alley. They are devices employed by Naguib Mahfouz to illustrate the struggle between the Egyptians' loyalty towards their ...
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Najib Mahfuz
Naguib Mahfouz
