Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha (Arabic:نجيب محفوظ عبد العزيز ابراهيم احمد الباشا,IPA:[næˈɡiːbmɑħˈfuːzˤ]; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptianwriter who won the1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, theSwedish Academy described him as a writer "who, through works rich in nuance – now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous – has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind".[1] Mahfouz is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers inArabic literature, along withTaha Hussein, to explore themes ofexistentialism.[2] He is the only Egyptian to win theNobel Prize in Literature. He published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 screenplays, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004. All of his novels take place in Egypt, and always mention the lane which equals the world. His most famous works includeThe Cairo Trilogy andChildren of Gebelawi. Many of Mahfouz's works have been made intoEgyptian and foreign films; no Arab writer exceeds Mahfouz in number of works that have been adapted for cinema and television. While Mahfouz's literature is classified asrealist literature,existential themes appear in it.[3]
Mahfouz was born in a lower middle-class Muslim Egyptian family inOld Cairo in 1911. The first part of his compound given name was chosen in appreciation of the well-known obstetrician,Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, who oversaw his difficult birth.[4] Mahfouz was the seventh and the youngest child, with four brothers and two sisters, all of them much older than him. (Experientially, he grew up an "only child".) The family lived in two popular districts of Cairo: first, in the Bayt al-Qadi neighborhood in the Gamaleya quarter in the old city, from where they moved in 1924 toAbbaseya, then a new Cairo suburb north of the old city, locations that would provide the backdrop for many of Mahfouz's later writings. His father, Abdel-Aziz Ibrahim, whom Mahfouz described as having been "old-fashioned", was acivil servant, and Mahfouz eventually followed in his footsteps in 1934. Mahfouz's mother, Fatimah, was the daughter of Mustafa Qasheesha, anAl-Azhar sheikh, and although illiterate herself, took the boy Mahfouz on numerous excursions to cultural locations such as theEgyptian Museum and thePyramids.[5]
The Mahfouz family were devout Muslims and Mahfouz had a strict Islamic upbringing. In an interview, he elaborated on the stern religious climate at home during his childhood. He stated, "You would never have thought that an artist would emerge from that family."[5]
TheEgyptian Revolution of 1919 had a strong effect on Mahfouz, although he was at the time only seven years old. From the window he saw British soldiers firing at the demonstrators in an effort to disperse them.[6] According to Mahfouz, "You could say ... that the one thing which most shook the security of my childhood was the 1919 revolution", he later said.[citation needed]
In his early years, Mahfouz read extensively and was influenced by Hafiz Najib,Taha Hussein andSalama Moussa, theFabian intellectual.[7]
After completing his secondary education, Mahfouz was admitted in 1930 to theEgyptian University (nowCairo University), where he studiedphilosophy, graduating in 1934. By 1936, having spent a year working on an M.A. in philosophy, he decided to discontinue his studies and become a professional writer. He published his first work inAl Majalla Al Jadida, a magazine started bySalama Musa in 1929.[8] Mahfouz then worked as a journalist forArrissalah, and contributed short stories toAl-Hilal andAl-Ahram.[9]
After receiving his bachelor's degree in philosophy fromCairo University in 1934, Mahfouz joined the Egyptian civil service, where he continued to work in various positions and ministries until retirement in 1971. He served first as a clerk at Cairo University, then, in 1938, in theMinistry of Islamic Endowments (Awqaf) as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Islamic Endowments. In 1945, he requested a transfer to theal-Ghuri Mausoleum library, where he interviewed residents of his childhood neighborhood as part of the "Good Loans Project".[10] In the 1950s, he worked as Director of Censorship in the Bureau of Arts, as Director of the Foundation for the Support of the Cinema, and finally as a consultant to theMinistry of Culture.[11]
Mahfouz published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of screenplays, and five plays over a 70-year career. Possibly his most famous work,The Cairo Trilogy, depicts the lives of three generations of different families in Cairo fromWorld War I until after the1952 military coup that overthrewKing Farouk. He was a board member of the publisherDar el-Ma'aref. Many of his novels were serialized inAl-Ahram, and his writings also appeared in his weekly column, "Point of View". Before the Nobel Prize only a few of his novels had appeared in the West.[12]
Most of Mahfouz's early works were set inCairo.Abath Al-Aqdar (Mockery of the Fates) (1939),Rhadopis (1943), andKifah Tibah (The Struggle of Thebes) (1944) were historical novels written as part of a larger unfulfilled 30-novel project. Inspired bySir Walter Scott (1771–1832), Mahfouz planned to cover the entirehistory of Egypt in a series of books. However, following the third volume, his interest shifted to current settings and issues, as well as the psychological impact ofsocial change on ordinary people.[13]
Mahfouz'sprose is characterised by the blunt expression of his ideas. His written works cover a broad range of topics, including the controversial and taboo such associalism, homosexuality, and God. Writing about some of these subjects was prohibited in Egypt.[13]
Mahfouz's central work in the 1950s was theCairo Trilogy, which he completed before theJuly Revolution. The novels were titled with the street namesPalace Walk,Palace of Desire, andSugar Street. Mahfouz set the story in the parts of Cairo where he grew up. The novels depict the life of the patriarch el-Sayyed Ahmed Abdel Gawad and his family over three generations, fromWorld War I until 1944. Mahfouz stopped writing for some years after finishing the trilogy.[12]
Disappointed in theNasser régime, which had overthrown the monarchy in 1952, he started publishing again in 1959, now prolifically pouring out novels, short stories, journalism, memoirs, essays, and screenplays.[13] He stated in a 1998 interview that he "long felt that Nasser was one of the greatest political leaders in modern history. I only began to fully appreciate him after he nationalized theSuez Canal."[14] His non-fiction, including his journalism and essays and his writing on literature and philosophy, were published in four volumes from 2016.[15]
His 1966 novelTharthara Fawq Al-Nīl (Adrift on the Nile) is one of his most popular works. It was later made into a film calledChitchat on the Nile during the régime ofAnwar al-Sadat. The story criticizes the decadence of Egyptian society during the Nasser era. It wasbanned bySadat to avoid provoking Egyptians who still loved former president Nasser. Copies of thebanned book were hard to find prior to the late 1990s.
TheChildren of Gebelawi (1959, also known asChildren of the Alley), one of Mahfouz's best known works, portrayed the patriarch Gebelaawi and his children, average Egyptians living the lives ofCain andAbel,Moses,Jesus, andMohammed. Gebelawi builds a mansion in anoasis in the middle of a barren desert; his estate becomes the scene of a family feud that continues for generations. "Whenever someone is depressed, suffering or humiliated, he points to the mansion at the top of the alley at the end opening out to the desert, and says sadly, 'That is our ancestor's house, we are all his children, and we have a right to his property. Why are we starving? What have we done?'" The book wasbanned throughout the Arab world except inLebanon until 2006 when it was first published in Egypt. The work was prohibited because of its allegedblasphemy through theallegorical portrayal of God and themonotheisticAbrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, andIslam.
In the 1960s, Mahfouz further developed the theme that humanity is moving further away from God in hisexistentialist novels. InThe Thief and the Dogs (1961) he depicted the fate of aMarxist thief who has been released from prison and plans revenge.[13]
Most of Mahfouz's writings deal mainly with politics, a fact he acknowledged: "In all my writings, you will find politics. You may find a story which ignores love or any other subject, but not politics; it is the very axis of our thinking".[16]
He espousedEgyptian nationalism in many of his works, and expressed sympathies for the post-World-War-eraWafd Party.[7] He was also attracted to socialist anddemocratic ideals early in his youth. The influence of socialist ideals is strongly reflected in his first two novels,Al-Khalili andNew Cairo, as well as many of his later works. Parallel to his sympathy for socialism and democracy was hisantipathy towardsIslamic extremism.[13]
In his youth, Mahfouz had personally knownSayyid Qutb when Qutb was showing a greater interest inliterary criticism than inIslamic fundamentalism; Qutb later became a significant influence on theMuslim Brotherhood. In the mid-1940s, Qutb was one of the first critics to recognize Mahfouz's talent, and by the 1960s, near the end of Qutb's life, Mahfouz even visited him in the hospital. But later, in the semi-autobiographical novelMirrors, Mahfouz drew a negative portrait of Qutb. He was disillusioned with the1952 revolution and by Egypt's defeat in the 1967Six-Day War. He had supported the principles of the revolution, but became disenchanted, saying that the practices failed to live up to the original ideals.
Mahfouz's writing influenced a new generation of Egyptian lawyers, including Nabil Mounir and Reda Aslan.[16]
Mahfouz's translated works received praise from American critics:
"The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly in Mahfouz's work as the streets of London were conjured by Dickens."—Newsweek[13]
"Throughout Naguib Mahfouz's fiction there is a pervasive sense of metaphor, of a literary artist who is using his fiction to speak directly and unequivocally to the condition of his country. His work is imbued with love for Egypt and its people, but it is also utterly honest and unsentimental."—Washington Post[13]
"Mahfouz's work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. The Nobel Prize acknowledges the universal significance of [his] fiction."—Los Angeles Times[13]
"Mr. Mahfouz embodied the essence of what makes the bruising, raucous, chaotic human anthill of Cairo possible."—The Economist[13]
Mahfouz was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Arab writer to have won the award. Shortly after winning the prize Mahfouz was quoted as saying:
The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level. The Arab world also won the Nobel with me. I believe that international doors have opened, and that from now on, literate people will consider Arab literature also. We deserve that recognition.[17]
The Swedish letter to Mahfouz praised his "rich and complex work":
[It] invites us to reconsider the fundamental things in life. Themes like the nature of time and love, society and norms, knowledge and faith recur in a variety of situations and are presented in thought-provoking, evocative, and clearly daring ways. And the poetic quality of your prose can be felt across the language barrier. In the prize citation you are credited with the forming of an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind.[18]
Because Mahfouz found traveling to Sweden difficult at his age, he did not attend the award ceremony.
Mahfouz did not shrink from controversy outside of his work. As a consequence of his support for Sadat'sCamp David peace treaty with Israel in 1978, his books were banned in many Arab countries until after he won the Nobel Prize. Like many Egyptian writers and intellectuals, Mahfouz was on an Islamic fundamentalist "death list".
He defended British-Indian writerSalman Rushdie after AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini condemned Rushdie to death in a 1989fatwa, but also criticized Rushdie's novelThe Satanic Verses as "insulting" to Islam. Mahfouz believed infreedom of expression, and, although he did not personally agree with Rushdie's work, he spoke out against thefatwa condemning him to death for it.
In 1989, after Ayatollah Khomeini'sfatwa calling for Rushdie and his publishers to be killed, Mahfouz called Khomeini a terrorist.[19] Shortly after, Mahfouz joined 80 other intellectuals in declaring that "noblasphemy harms Islam and Muslims so much as the call for murdering a writer."[20]
The publication ofThe Satanic Verses revived the controversy surrounding Mahfouz's novelChildren of Gebelawi. Death threats against Mahfouz followed, including one from the "blind sheikh", Egyptian-bornOmar Abdel-Rahman. Mahfouz was given police protection, but in 1994 an extremist succeeded in attacking the 82-year-old novelist by stabbing him in the neck outside his Cairo home.[21]
He survived, permanently affected by damage to nerves of his right upper limb. Sixteen people were put on a military trial, and two of them received death penalty and eventually hanged. After the incident, Mahfouz was unable to write for more than a few minutes a day and consequently produced fewer and fewer works. Subsequently, he lived under constant bodyguard protection. Finally, in the beginning of 2006, the novel was published in Egypt with a preface written by Ahmad Kamal Aboul-Magd. After the threats, Mahfouz stayed in Cairo with his lawyer, Nabil Mounir Habib. Mahfouz and Mounir would spend most of their time in Mounir's office; Mahfouz used Mounir's library as a reference for most of his books. Mahfouz stayed with Mounir until his death.[22][12]
Mahfouz remained a bachelor until age 43 because he believed that, with its numerous restrictions and limitations, marriage would hamper his literary future.[7] "I was afraid of marriage . . . especially when I saw how busy my brothers and sisters were with social events because of it. This one went to visit people, that one invited people. I had the impression that married life would take up all my time. I saw myself drowning in visits and parties. No freedom."[23]
However, in 1954, he quietly married aCoptic Orthodox woman fromAlexandria, Atiyyatallah Ibrahim,[24] with whom he had two daughters, Fatima and Umm Kalthum. The couple initially lived on a houseboat in theAgouza section of Cairo on the west bank of theNile, then moved to an apartment along the river in the same area. Mahfouz avoided public exposure, especially inquiries into his private life, which might have become, as he put it, "a silly topic in journals and radio programs."[13]
Mahfouz distinctly did not like to travel.Belgrade was one of the few cities to which he gladly went and he expressed great respect forSerbia.[25]
Mahfouz's legacy is considered a cornerstone of Modern Egyptian culture, his books are republished all the time,[26] Cairo International Book Fair celebrated Mahfouz more than once.[27]
His books keeps getting adapted into films and TV series in Egypt or internationally,[28] such as Mexican adaptation ofMidaq Alley starring Salma Hayek in 1995, and Egyptian TV series Afrah AlQoba,[29] Bayn El Samaa Wa El Ard[30] and Hadith Alsabah wa Almassaa[31] among others.
In 2019, Egyptian Ministry of Culture openedNaguib Mahfouz museum located in Old Cairo, nearWikala of al-Ghuri, Muzz Street andAzhar mosque, where most of Mahfouz novels take place, the museum have different collectibles from Mahfouz's life such as his hat, desk, photographs and his awards including Nobel Medal.[32][33]
In 2021, Egyptian actorAhmed Helmy announced that he's working on a biographical TV series about Mahfouz's life, Starring Helmy as Mahfouz and written by Abdelreheem Kamal.[34]
^Deseret Morning News editorial (7 September 2006)."The legacy of a laureate".Deseret News. Archived fromthe original on 28 June 2009. Retrieved20 September 2007.
^Afrah AlQoba (Crime, Drama, Music), Saba Mubarak, Eyad Nassar, Jamal Soliman, Al Shorouk for Media Productions, JWT, Spinoza Productions, 6 June 2016, retrieved5 January 2025{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^Bayn El Samaa Wa El Ard (Drama), Nada Musa, Bayoumi Fouad, Sawsan Badr, Synergy Films, 13 April 2021, retrieved5 January 2025{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
^Hadith Alsabah wa Almassaa (Drama, Fantasy), Dalal Abdulaziz, Salwa Khattab, Ahmed Zaher, Adl Group, 15 November 2001, retrieved5 January 2025{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
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