SOURCE: Mikhail, Mona N. “Eros and the Quest for Happiness.” In Studies in the Short Fiction of Mahfouz and Idris, pp. 94-142. New York: New York University Press, 1992.

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 of the Hero to his World changes, so does the form of fiction. The Hero, who once figured as Initiate, ends as Rebel or Victim. The change in his condition implies destruction—and presages rebirth.¹

The short stories of Naguib Mahfouz and Yusuf Idris, and indeed a great many stories of other Egyptian writers, do not present a systematic love ethic by which they can be characterized or measured. They tend to embody perhaps more of a romantic yearning for absolutes rather than the traditional notion...