A native of the Gamaliya quarter of Cairo, the author recreates in his writings life on the streets of urban Egypt. His prose works--which have been compared in spirit, tone, and ambience to the socially conscious works of nineteenth-century novelists Honore de Balzac and Charles Dickens--reflect Egypt's volatile political history and depict the distressing conditions under which the Arab poor live.
An Egyptian Upbringing
Mahfouz was born in al-Jamaliyyah, a quarter in the old part of Cairo, in 1911. He was the youngest child in the family by a number of years; thus, despite the presence of older brothers and sisters, he essentially grew up in his parents' house as an only child. When he was six years old, his father, a civil servant, moved the family to the more prosperous suburb of al-'Abbasiyyah. Mahfouz was only eight years old during the 1919 revolution in Egypt, but the event affected him greatly and later found its way into his novels. After secondary school Mahfouz went to Cairo University to study philosophy, graduating in 1934. During this time he also began to publish essays and short stories. In 1939 he joined the Egyptian civil service, holding a number of government jobs over the next thirty-two years.
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