Born: Gamaliya, Cairo, Egypt, 11 December 1911. Education: Educated at the University of Cairo, 1930-34, degree in philosophy 1934, postgraduate study 1935-36. Family: Married ‘Atiyya ‘Alla’ in 1954; one son and one daughter. Career: Secretary, University of Cairo, 1936-38; journalist: staff member, Al-Risala, and contributor to Al-Hilal and Al-Ahram; civil servant, Ministry of Islamic Affairs, 1939-54; director of censorship, Department of Art; director of Foundation for Support of the Cinema for the State Cinema Organization, 1959-69; consultant for cinema affairs to the Ministry of Culture, 1969-71; retired from civil service, 1971. Member of board, Dar al/Ma’aref publishing house. Lives in Cairo. Awards: Egyptian state prize, 1956; National prize for letters, 1970; Collar of the Republic (Egypt), 1972; Nobel prize for literature, 1988. Named to Egyptian Order of Independence and Order of the Republic.
Publications
Fiction
Hams al-junun [The Whisper of Madness]. 1939.
‘Abath al aqdar [The Mockery of Fate]. 1939.
Rhodopis. 1943.
Kifah Tiba [Thebes' Struggle]. 1944.
Khan al-Khalili [Khalili Market]. 1945.
Al-Qahira al-jadida [New Cairo]. 1946.
Zuqaq al-Midaqq, 1947; as Midaq Alley, translated by Trevor Le Gassick, 1966; revised edition, 1975.
Al-sarab [Mirage]. 1949(?)
Bidaya wa-nihaya. 1949; as The Beginning and the End, translated by Ramses Awad, 1985.
Al-thulathiya [The Cairo Trilogy]: Bayn al-Qasrayn. 1956; as Palace Walk, translated by William M. Hutchins and Olive E. Kenny, 1991.
Qasr al-shawq. 1957; as Palace of Desire, translated by William M. Hutchins, Lorne M. Kenny, and Olive E. Kenny, 1992.
Al-sukkariya. 1957; as Sugar Street, translated by William M. Hutchins and Angele Botros Samaan, 1992.
Al-lis wa-l-kilab. 1961; as The Thief and the Dogs, translated by Trevor Le Gassiek and M.M. Badawi, revised by John Rodenbeck, 1984.
Al-samman wa-l-kharif. 1962; as Autumn Quail, translated by Roger Allen, 1985.
Dunya Allah [The World of God]. 1963.
Al-Tariq. 1964; as The Search, edited by Magdi Wahba, translated by Mohamed Islam, 1991.
Al-shahhaz. 1965; as The Beggar, translated by Kristin Walker Henry and Narim Khales Naili al Warraki, 1986.
Bayt sayyi’ al-sum’a [A House of Ill-Repute]. 1965.
Tharthara fawq al-Nil. 1966; as Adrift on the Nile, translated by Frances Liardet, 1993.
Awlad haratina. 1967; as Children of Gebelawi, translated by Philip Stewart, 1981; as Children of the Alley, translated by Peter Theroux, 1996.
Miramar. 1967; as Miramar, translated by Fatma Moussa-Mahmoud, 1978, revised and edited by Maged el Kommos and John Rodenbeck, 1993.
Khammarat al-qitt al-aswad [The Black Cat Tavern]. 1968.
Taht al-midhalla [Under the Awning]. 1969.
Hikaya bi-la bidaya wa-la nihaya [A Story without Beginning or End]. 1971.
Shahr al-’asal [Honeymoon]. 1971.
Al-maraya. 1972; as Mirrors, translated by Roger Allen, 1977.
Al-hubb tahta al-matar [Love in the Rain]. 1973.
God’s World: An Anthology of Short Stories, edited and translated by Akef Abadir and Roger Allen. 1973.
Al-jarima [The Crime]. 1973.
Al-karnak. 1974; as Al-karnak, translated by Saad El-Gabalawy, in Three Contemporary Egyptian Novels, 1979.
Hikayat haratina. 1975; as Fountain and Tomb, translated by Soad Sobhy, Essam Fattouh, and James Kenneson, 1988.
Qalb al-layl [In the Heart of the Night]. 1975.
Hadrat al-muhtaram. 1975; as Respected Sir, translated by Rasheed el-Enamy, 1986.
Modern Egyptian Short Stories, with Yusuf Idris and Sa’d al-Khadim, translated by Saad El-Gabalawy. 1977.
Malhamat at harafish [The Epic of the Riff-Raff]. 1977; as The Harafish, translated by Catherine Cobham, 1994.
Al-hubb fawqa Hadabat al-Haram [Love on Pyramid Mount]. 1979.
Al-shaytan ya’id [Satan Preaches]. 1979.
‘Asr al-hubb [Age of Love]. 1980.
Layali alf laylah [A Thousand and One Nights]. 1981; as Arabian Nights and Days, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies, 1995.
Afrah al-qubbah. 1981; as Wedding Song, translated by Olive E. Kenny, revised and edited by Mursi Saad el-Din and John Rodenbeck, 1984.
Ra’aytufimayaraal-na’im [I Have Seen What a Sleeper Sees]. 1982.
Baqi min al-zaman sa’ah [One Hour Left]. 1982.
Amama al’arsh [In Front of the Throne]. 1982.
Rihlat Ibn Fattuma. 1983; as The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies, 1992.
Al-tandhim al-sirri [The Secret Organization]. 1984.
Al-a’ishfi al-haqiqa [Living with the Truth]. 1985.
Yawm qutila al-za’im. 1985; as The Day the Leader Was Killed, translated by Malak Hashem, 1989.
Hadith al sabah wa-al-masa’ [Morning and Evening Talk]. 1987.
Sabah al-ward [Good Morning]. 1987.
Qushtumor. 1989.
The Time and the Place and Other Stories, edited and translated by Denys Johnson-Davies. 1991.
Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth, translated by Tagreid Abu-Hassabo. 2000.
Plays
One-Act Plays, translated by Nehad Selaiha. 1989.
Other
Nagib Mahfuz-yatazakkar [Mahfouz Remembers], edited by Jamal al-Ghitani. 1980.
Asdaa’ al-sira al-dhatiyya. 1995; as Echoes of an Autobiography, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies, 1997.
Critical Studies:
The Changing Rhythm: A Study of Nagib Mahfuz’s Novels by Sasson Somekh, 1973; ”Reality, Allegory and Myth in the Work of Najib Mahfuz” by Mehahern Milson, in African and Asian Studies, 11, 1976; ”Mahfuz’s Al-karnak: The Quiet Conscience of Nassir’s Egypt Revealed” by Trevor Le Gassick, in Middle Eastern Journal, 31(3), 1977, and Critical Perspectives on Naguib Mahfouz edited by Le Gassick, 1989; Religion, My Own: The Literary Works of Nagib Mahfuz by Matityahu Peled, 1983; Naguib Mahfouz, Nobel 88: Egyptian Perspectives: A Collection of Critical Essays edited by M.M. Enani, 1989; Naguib Mahfouz’s Egypt: Existential Themes in His Writings by Gordon Hain, 1990; Individuals and Community in Midaq Alley: Societal Dynamics in the World of Naguib Mahfouz by Mitsuhiro Kodama, 1991; Studies in the Short Fiction of Mahfouz and Idris by Mona N. Mikhail, 1992; Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning by Rasheed El-Enamy, 1993; Naguib Mahfouz: From Regional Fame to Global Recognition by Michael Beard and Adnan Hayden, 1993; Naguib Mahfouz: The Pursuit of Meaning by Rasheed El-Enany, 1993; The Early Novels of Naguib Mahfouz: Images of Modern Egypt by Matti Moosa, 1994; Three Dynamite Authors: Derek Walcott (Nobel 1992), Naguib Mahfouz (Nobel 1988), Wole Soyinka (Nobel 1986): Ten Bio-critical Essays from Their Works as Published by Three Continents Press, edited by Donald E. Herdeck, 1995.
Crowned with the Nobel prize for literature, Naguib Mahfouz reigns over 20th-century Arabic prose literature like an influential but unassuming constitutional monarch. The current success of translations of his works in many languages is unprecedented for a modern Arab author. His novels and collections of short stories portray different strata and aspects of Egyptian society, most frequently those of contemporary Cairo, although four are pharaonic novels.
Al-thulathiya [The Cairo Trilogy], consisting of Bayn al-Qasrayn (Palace Walk), Qasr al-shawq (Palace of Desire), and Al-sukkariya (Sugar Street), is thought by many critics to be his masterpiece. It is a massive but intimate account of the emotional and intellectual development from childhood to maturity of the hero, Kamal, and of the adventures of his parents, siblings, and—in the third volume—his nephews and nieces. Part of the fascination of the Trilogy is the mirror that the fortunes and misfortunes of this family provide for those of Egypt as a whole during the period from 1917 to 1944. In the Trilogy and elsewhere, Mahfouz has been able to reveal the universal dimensions of chance events and of eccentric characters, thus introducing outsiders to some of Cairo’s secret worlds while at the same time reintroducing readers to themselves.
Known for his sympathetic portrayals of female characters, this author’s most typical hero, however, is the male civil servant— whether a teacher like Kamal or an office clerk like his libidinous brother Yasin—who is making his way through life none too surely, pushed in many different directions by the demands of family, sex, ambition, religion, modernity, tradition, and idealism. He has chronicled the full range of human possibilities, including the most sexually confused (for example in Al-sarab [Mirage]) or corruptly degraded, in a sympathetic way that does not seem judgemental. If Mahfouz has a typical villain, it is time.
Mahfouz is an author who may weep at the tragedies of his characters without once moderating the blows he administers to them on behalf of fate. Although his works are often flavoured with a melancholy pessimism, there is usually a life-affirming thread in the fabric. Novels by Mahfouz frequently depict the comic or pathetic attempts of human beings to make sense of those fleeting moments of consciousness that constitute our allotment of the pulsing surge of evolutionary life. Traditional conservatism and revolutionary experiments are merely rival extremes in an endless dialectic that presses humanity toward a tantalizing but unreachable synthesis. Paternalism, no matter how affectionate and benevolent, is doomed to tragic failure, but so too is liberalism, understood as surrender to sensual or intellectual appetites.
An autobiographical author, Mahfouz tends to identify not with any one character, except perhaps Kamal, but with the sum of all character traits presented. Trained as a philosopher, he has allowed his heroes to brood about deep questions, without forgetting that the job of an author is to tell stories.
Besides the Cairo Trilogy, several other works by Mahfouz have acquired many fans. In Miramar, thought by some to be his best work, residents of a pension that has seen better days reveal their outlook and backgrounds as they react to a beautiful woman who joins the staff. Zuqaq al-Midaqq (Midaq Alley), a racy slice of working-class life in Cairo during World War II, asks readers whether the heroine should elect to be a prostitute for British forces stationed in Cairo or the wife of a nice but dull alley barber. Al-Qahira al-jadida [New Cairo] records the exploits of some school friends, one of whom willingly sacrifices his honour to further his career. Like many of his other novels, some of which have also been successfully adapted for the stage, it has been made into a popular film. Al-lis wa-l-kilab (The Thief and the Dogs) is a brief and grim account of a convicted felon who attempts to take revenge on the powerful man who betrayed him. Awlad haratina (Children of Gebelawi), a book banned in Egypt, draws on the heritage of the Abrahamic religions to create an allegory about mankind’s continuing search for spiritual values. In Hikayat haratina (Fountain and Tomb) as in other works Mahfouz has utilized elements of Islamic mysticism, here as part of the framework for a series of lively vignettes of backstreet life.
If Mahfouz has rarely shown the stylistic brilliance in Arabic of Ibrahim Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini or the natural simplicity of Tawfiq al-Hakim, he has demonstrated an awesome and deft mastery of the Arabic language, which in its vast potential resembles an enormously complicated pipe organ. Even so, Mahfouz is more noteworthy for his psychological penetration and his ability to make even minor characters convincing and appealing, no matter how disgusting, than for the poetry of his language. In his more recent fiction, Mahfouz, who has been amazingly prolific through the years, has tended to abandon the detailed social realism that first made his reputation, favouring instead experiments in more rapid delivery of stories stripped to their psychological core or attempts to return to a more traditional, Islamic form of storytelling. Yet from the very beginning of his career with his first historical novels set in ancient Egypt, Mahfouz has been experimenting with different literary forms. The Cairo Trilogy, for all its traditional social realism, must have seemed to him a giant experiment.
