Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic: نجيب محفوظ ) (born December 11, 1911) is a Nobel Prize winning Egyptian novelist.

Naguib Mahfouz was born in the Gamaliya quarter of Cairo; he was named after Professor Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, the physician who delivered him. 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 Culture. He has published more than 30 novels to date. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1988.

Many of his novels were first published in serialized form, including Children of Gebelawi and Midaq Alley which was adapted into a Mexican film starring Salma Hayek (El callejón de los milagros).

Children of Gebelawi (1959), one of Mahfouz's best known works, has been banned in Egypt for alleged blasphemy over its less-than-flattering portrayal of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. In 1989, after the fatwa for apostasy against Salman Rushdie, a blind Egyptian theologian, Omar Abdul-Rahman, told a journalist that if Mahfouz had been punished for writing this novel, Rushdie would not have dared publish his. Sheikh Omar has always maintained that this was not a fatwa, but in 1994 Islamic extremists, believing that it had been one, attempted to assassinate the 82-year-old novelist, stabbing him in the neck outside his Cairo home. He survived and now lives under constant bodyguard protection.

US trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas titled a song on his 2001 album Witness "Mahfouz". The 25-minute piece features singer Tom Waits reading an excerpt from Mahfouz's works.

As of 2006, Mahfouz is the oldest living Nobel laureate in Literature and the third oldest of all time, trailing only Bertrand Russell and Halldor Laxness.

Works

Whisper of Madness (1938)همس الجنون
Mockery of the Fates (1939) عبث الأقدار
Rhadopis of Nubia (1943) رادوبيس
Modern Cairo (1945) القاهرة الجديدة
Khan al-Khalili 1945 خان الخليلى
Midaq Alley (1947) زقاق المدق
The Mirage" السراب
*The Beginning and The End (1950) بداية ونهاية
* The Cairo Trilogy
**Palace Walk (1956) بين القصرين
**Palace of Desire (1957) قصر الشوق
**Sugar Street (1957) السكرية
*Children of Gebelawi (1959) أولاد حارتنا
*The Thief and the Dogs (1961) اللص والكلاب
*Quail and Autumn (1962) السمان والخريف
*The Search (1964) الطريق
*The Beggar (1965) الشحاذ
*Chatting on the Nile (1966) ثرثرة على النيل
*Miramar (1967) ميرامار
*Mirrors (1972) المرايا
*al-Karnak (1974) الكرنك
*Respected Sir (1975) حضرة المحترم
*The Harafish (1977) ملحمة الحرافيش
*Love and the Veil (1980)
*Arabian Nights and Days (1981) ليالى ألف ليلة
*Wedding Song (1981)
*The Journey of Ibn Fattouma (1983) رحلة إبن فطومة
*Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth (1985) العائش فى الحقيقة
*Fountain and Tomb'' (1988)

References

*Alamgir Hashmi, The Worlds of Muslim Imagination (1986) ISBN 0005004071.
*Rasheed El-Enany, Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning (1993) ISBN 0415073952

See also

*List of African writers

External links

*Naguib Mahfouz article from Nobelprize website.
*Naguib Mahfouz from Pegasos Author's Calendar
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