Search results for ""Author Naguib Mahfouz""

When Naguib Mahfouz quit his job as a civil servant in 1971, a Nobel Prize in literature was still off on the horizon, as was his global recognition as the central figure of Arab literature. He was just beginning his post on the editorial staff of the Egyptian newspaper "Al-Ahram," and elsewhere in Cairo, Anwar Sadat was just beginning his hugely transformative Egyptian presidency, which would span eleven years and come to be known as the Sadat era. This book offers English-language readers the first glimpse of the Sadat era through Mahfouz s eyes, a collection of pieces that captures one of Egypt s most important decades in the prose of one of the Middle East s most important writers. This volume stitches together a fascinating and vivid account of the dramatic events Sadat s era, from his break with the Soviet Union to the Yom Kippur War with Israel and eventual peace accord and up to his assassination by Islamic extremists in 1981. Through this tumultuous history, Mahfouz takes on a diverse array of political topics including socioeconomic stratification, democracy and dictatorship, and Islam and extremism which are still of crucial relevance to Egypt today.Clear-eyed and direct, the works illuminate Mahfouz s personal and political convictions that were more often hidden in his novels, enriching his better-known corpus with social, political, and ideological context. These writings are a rare treasure, a story of a time of tremendous social and political change in the Middle East told by one if its most iconic authors."

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"Khan al-Khalili" tells the story of the Akifs, a middle-class family that has taken refuge in Cairo's historic neighborhood during the Second World War. Through the eyes of Ahmad, the eldest Akif son, Naguib Mahfouz presents a richly textured vision of the Khan al-Khalili. As Ahmad interacts with the people of this market district, a debate emerges that pits old against new, history against modernity, and faith against secularism.

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THE ACCLAIMED INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER BY THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR.'A masterpiece' - The Times'The Arab Tolstoy' - Simon Sebag MontefioreSugar Street, the climactic final book in the classic Cairo Trilogy, is the captivating story of a family struggling to change with the rise of modern Egypt. As Cairo shrugs off the final vestiges of colonialism, Ahmad Al Jawad has lost his power and surveys the world from a latticed balcony. Unable to control his family's destiny, he watches helplessly as his dynasty and the traditions he holds dear disintegrate before his eyes.But through Ahamd's three grandsons we see modern how Egypt takes shape. One grandson is a communist activist, another a Muslim fundamentalist, both working for what they believe will be a better world. And Ridwan, the inheritor of his father's charms, launches a political career aided by a homosexual affair with prominent politician.A vivid portrait of a family and a country in a time of upheaval, the Cairo Trilogy is the greatest and best loved work by the 20th century's most important Arab novelist.

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Set in Cairo in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967, "Love in the Rain" introduces us to an assortment of characters who, each in his or her own way, comes face to face with the questions raised by human weakness and misfortune. The war and its casualties, as well as people's foibles and the tragedies they create for themselves, raise existential questions about the existence of God, whether there is really order in the universe, and what certainty can be had not only militarily, but economically, socially and morally. In a frank, sensitive treatment of everything from patriotism to prostitution, homosexuality and lesbianism, "Love in the Rain" presents a struggle between 'old' and 'new' in the realm of moral values that leaves the future in doubt. Through the dilemmas and heartbreaks faced by his protagonists, Mahfouz exposes the hypocrisy of those who condemn any breach of sexual morality while turning a blind eye to violence, corruption, and oppression, double standards as applied to men's and women's sexuality, and the folly of an exclusive focus on sexual morals without reference to other aspects of human character.

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This boxset consists of a collection of newspaper articles and earlier essays, presented in four volumes. Each volume is introduced by Professor Rasheed El-Enany (University of Exeter).

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The books' titles are taken from actual streets in Cairo, the city of Mahfouz's childhood and youth. The trilogy follows the life of the Cairene patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family across three generations, from World War I to the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952.

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This volume consists of essays published in newspapers between 1982 and 1988, coinciding with the early years of Hosni Mubarak's presidency. Mahfouz describes Mubarak's early administration as an 'unhurried democracy'. In these essays, Mubarak is not subjected to direct criticism, which is mainly reserved for Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat. Meanwhile, political figures such as Saad Zaghloul and Mustafa al-Nahhas are praised as great leaders, signifying Mahfouz's continuous sympathy with the Wafd party. Mahfouz's exceptional humanity is most prominent in the careful attention he pays to the daily challenges faced by Egyptians. The writing presented here reveals his remarkable insight into the country's political and social issues, as well as a pragmatic capacity to see the larger picture, particularly when it comes to the role of Egypt in the Arab world. A recurring theme in the majority of the essays is Mahfouz's perseverance in insisting, despite hardships, on tolerance and justice, on peaceful coexistence, on the maintenance of work ethics, on the importance of cultural education, and the merits of democracy.

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Naguib Mahfouz’s magnificent epic trilogy of colonial Egypt appears here in one volume for the first time. The Nobel Prize-winning writer’s masterwork is the engrossing story of a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain’s occupation of Egypt in the early decades of the twentieth century. The novels of The Cairo Trilogy trace three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence.Palace Walk introduces us to his gentle, oppressed wife, Amina, his cloistered daughters, Aisha and Khadija, and his three sons – the tragic and idealistic Fahmy, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the soul-searching intellectual Kamal. Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination in Palace of Desire, as the world around them opens to the currents of modernity and political and domestic turmoil brought by the 1920s.Sugar Street brings Mahfouz’s vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to a dramatic climax as the ageing patriarch sees one grandson become a Communist, one a Muslim fundamentalist, and one the lover of a powerful politician. Throughout the trilogy, the family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years spanning the two World Wars, as change comes to a society that has resisted it for centuries. Filled with compelling drama, earthy humour and remarkable insight, The Cairo Trilogy is the achievement of a master storyteller.

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THE ACCLAIMED INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR.'A masterpiece' - The Times'Shamelessly entertaining' - GuardianThe sensual and provocative second book in the classic Cairo Trilogy, Palace Of Desire follows the Al Jawad family into the awakening world of the 1920's and the sometimes violent clash between Islamic ideals, personal dreams and modern realities.Having given up his vices after his son's death, ageing patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad pursues a bewitching lute-player - only for her to marry his eldest son. His rebellious children struggle to move beyond his domination as they test the loosening reins of societal and parental control. And Ahmad's youngest son, in an unforgettable portrayal of unrequited love, falls for the sophisticated daughter of a rich Europeanised family.A vivid portrait of a family and a country in a time of upheaval, the Cairo Trilogy is the greatest and best loved work by the 20th century's most important Arab novelist.

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On his 'journey from the dreams of the jinn to the love of the truth' Jaafar Ibrahim Sayyed al-Rawi is guided by his motto, 'let life be filled with holy madness to the last breath'. A victim of wrong decisions he loses everything, family and wealth. He goes from a life of comfort with a promising future guaranteed by his wealthy grandfather, Sayyed al-Rawi, to the life of a pauper. Alone and destitute, he remains unbroken in his quest to fight the Waqf to recuperate his inheritance. He faces his tribulations with surprising stoicism and hope, sustained by a strong conviction that he is 'a man with a mission' and a political program to bring social justice to his people.

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Naguib Mahfouz, the Arab world’s only Nobel literature laureate, is best known internationally for his short stories and novels, including The Cairo Trilogy. But in Egypt he was equally familiar to newspaper readers for the column he wrote for many years in the leading daily Al-Ahram, in which he reflected on issues of the day from domestic and international events, politics, and economics to historic anniversaries, inspirational personalities, and questions of cultural freedom. This volume brings together the 285 articles he wrote between January 1989 and the near-fatal knife attack in October 1994. In carefully crafted short texts, his social conscience is revealed as he highlights political shortcomings, economic injustice, and corruption in Egypt and the wider Arab world. His philosophical sensitivity comes to the fore as he contemplates the meaning of a historic events, contributions of an influential people, and what is required to lead a good life. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the Oslo peace accords, the spread of terrorism, the Cairo earthquake, the passing of Louis Awad, Yusuf Idris, Yahya Hakki, the third term of Hosni Mubarak, climate change, and more come under Naguib Mahfouz’s fine scrutiny. For any fan of Mahfouz’s fiction, this collection opens a window on a different side of his intellect, and it offers insights from one of the region’s greatest modern minds.

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Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz, offers this epic story of a single alley in Cairo and the generations that passed through it.A tumultuous neighbourhood known as ''the alley'' has seen successive heroes rise and fall as they struggle to defend the rights left to them by their great ancestor, Gebelawi.From the supreme feudal lord who disowns one son for pride and puts another to the test, to the saviour who tries to free his people from bondage, the men and woman of the alley seem unable to stop themselves from reenacting the lives of their holy forbearers. Through their successes and failures, the spiritual history of humankind is revealed.Hailed as the single most important writer in modern Arabic literature' (Newsweek), Naguib Mahfouz displays the richness and variety of his storytelling in this Egyptian literary classic.A powerful allegory of human suffering and striving.' New York TimesImmen

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Widely acclaimed as Naguib Mahfouz's best novel, Midaq Alley brings to life one of the hustling, teeming back alleys of Cairo in the 1940s. From Zaita the cripple-maker to Kirsha the hedonistic cafe owner, from Abbas the barber who mistakes greed for love to Hamida who sells her soul to escape the alley, from waiters and widows to politicians, pimps, and poets, the inhabitants of Midaq Alley vividly evoke Egypt's largest city as it teeters on the brink of change. Never has Nobel Prize-winner Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than here, in his portrait of one small street as a microcosm of the world on the threshold of modernity.

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To celebrate the centenary of the birth of the great Egyptian writer and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, the AUC Press, which has been publishing English translations of Mahfouz's work since 1978, presents all his novels, three collections of short stories, and his autobiographical writings in a single library of 20 hardbound volumes, including all 42 works translated into English. From Khufu's Wisdom, first published in Arabic in 1939, to his last work of extended fiction, The Coffeehouse (1988), all thirty-five of his novels are here, along with thirty-eight short stories His Echoes of an Autobiography is included, as well as his exquisite late series of intensely short fictions known as The Dreams and the collection of his weekly newspaper columns, Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber. This unique library brings together all Naguib Mahfouz's translated work for the first time in a very special publishing event. - Volume 1: Khufu's Wisdom, Rhadopis of Nubia, Thebes at War - Volume 2: Cairo Modern, Khan al-Khalili - Volume 3: Midaq Alley - Volume 4: The Mirage - Volume 5: The Beginning and the End - Volume 6: Palace Walk - Volume 7: Palace of Desire - Volume 8: Sugar Street - Volume 9: Children of the Alley - Volume 10: The Thief and the Dogs, Autumn Quail, The Search - Volume 11: The Beggar, Adrift on the Nile, Miramar - Volume 12: Mirrors, Love in the Rain, Karnak Caf - Volume 13: Fountain and Tomb, Heart of the Night, Respected Sir - Volume 14: The Harafish - Volume 15: In the Time of Love, Wedding Song, Arabian Nights and Days - Volume 16: The Final Hour, Before the Throne - Volume 17: The Journey of Ibn Fattouma, Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth - Volume 18: The Day the Leader Was Killed, Morning and Evening Talk, The Coffeehouse - Volume 19: Echoes of an Autobiography, The Dreams, Dreams of Departure, Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber - Volume 20: The Time and the Place, The Seventh Heaven, Voices from the Other World.

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Naguib Mahfouz's haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid pychological portrait of an anguished man with the suspense and rapid pace of a detective story.After four years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married to each other and are keeping his six-year-old daughter from him. But in the most bitter betrayal, his mentor, Rauf Ilwan, once a firebrand revolutionary who convinced Said that stealing from the rich in a unjust society is an act of justice, is now himself a rich man, a respected newspaper editor who wants nothing to do with the disgraced Said. As Said's wild attempts to achieve his idea of justice badly misfire, he becomes a hunted man so driven by hatred that he can only recognize too late his l

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With a writing career spanning some seventy years, Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most recognized writers in the world. His study of philosophy at what is now Cairo University greatly influenced his works, as did his wide readings and his work in the government and in the Cinema Organization. The Wisdom of Naguib Mahfouz, like the earlier Life's Wisdom, is a unique collection of quotations selected from the great author's works, offering philosophical insights on themes such as childhood, youth, love, marriage, war, freedom, death, the supernatural, the afterlife, the soul, immortality, and many other subjects that take us through life's journey.

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Pharaoh Khufu is battling the Fates. At stake is the inheritance of Egypt's throne, the proud but tender heart of Khufu's beautiful daughter Princess Merensankh and Khufu's legacy as a sage, not savage ruler.

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In Before the Throne, Naguib Mahfouz summons nearly sixty of Egypt's rulers to the afterlife Court of Osiris, from a king who unified Egypt for the first time, around 3000 BC, to a president assassinated by religious extremists in 1981. He includes names as familiar as the pharaoh Ramesses II and as obscure as the medieval vizier Qaraqush. Defending their behaviour before the divine tribunal, those who acted for the nation's good are honoured with immortality, but those who failed to protect it leave the gilded hall of eternal justice with a very different verdict. Full of Mahfouz's unique insight into his country's timeless qualities, this controversial work skillfully traces five thousand years of Egypt's past as it flows into the present, through the mind of its most acclaimed author.

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The novelist’s camera pans from the dome of King Fuad University (now Cairo University) to students streaming out of the campus, focusing on four students in their twenties, each representing a different trend in Egypt in the 1930s. Finally the camera comes to rest on Mahgub Abd al-Da’im. A scamp, he fancies himself a nihilist, a hedonist, an egotist, but his personal vulnerability is soon revealed by a family crisis back home in al-Qanatir, a dusty, provincial town on the Nile that is also a popular destination for Cairene day-trippers. Mahgub, like many characters in works by Naguib Mahfouz, has a hard time finding the correct setting on his ambition gauge. His emotional life also fluctuates between the extremes of a street girl, who makes her living gathering cigarette butts, and his wealthy cousin Tahiya. Since he thinks that virtue is merely a social construct, how far will our would-be nihilist go in trying to fulfill his unbridled ambitions? What if he discovers that high society is more corrupt and cynical than he is? With a wink back at Goethe’s Faust and Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Mahgub becomes a willing collaborator in his own corruption.Published in Arabic in the 1940s, this cautionary morality tale about self-defeating egoism and ill-digested foreign philosophies comes from the same period as one of the writer’s best known works, Midaq Alley. Both novels are comic and heart-felt indictments not so much of Egyptian society between the world wars as of human nature and our paltry attempts to establish just societies.

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Mahfouz's last novel, an evocative depiction of life in Egypt in the twentieth century as told through the lives of a group of friends, is now available in paperback for the first time On a school playground in the stylish Cairo suburb of Abbasiya, five young boys become friends for life, making a nearby café, Qushtumur, their favorite gathering spot forever. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian, and classically Mahfouzian, quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place. In a seamless stream of personal triumphs and tragedies, their lives play out against the backdrop of two world wars, the 1952 Free Officers coup, the defeat of 1967 and the redemption of 1973, the assassination of a president, and the simmering uncertainties of the transitional 1980s. But as their nation grows and their neighborhood turns from the green, villa-studded paradise of their youth to a dense urban desert of looming towers, they still find refuge in the one enduring landmark in their ever-fading world: the humble coffeehouse called Qushtumur. The Coffeehouse is a powerful and timeless novel of loss and memory from one of Egypt's most celebrated literary masters.

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Naguib Mahfouz is one of the most important writers in contemporary Arabic literature. Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1988 (the only Arab writer to win the prize thus far), his novels helped bring Arabic literature onto the international stage. Far fewer people know his nonfiction works, however-a gap that this book fills. Bringing together Mahfouz's early nonfiction writings (most penned during the 1930s) which have not previously been available in English, this volume offers a rare glimpse into the early development of the renowned author. As these pieces show, Mahfouz was deeply interested in literature and philosophy, and his early writings engage with the origins of philosophy, its development and place in the history of thought, as well its meaning writ large. In his literary essays, he discusses a wide range of authors, from Anton Chekov to his own Arab contemporaries like Taha Hussein.He also ventures into a host of important contemporary issues, including science and modernity, the growing movement for women's rights in the Arab world, and emerging ideologies like socialism-all of which outline the growing challenges to traditional modes of living that we saw all around him.Together, these essays offer a fascinating window not just into the mind of Mahfouz himself but the changing landscape of Egypt during that time, from the development of Islam to the struggles between tradition, modernity, and the influences of the West.

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Nobel winning author, Naguib Mahfouz's late-translated novella, Heart of the Night is now available for the first time in paperbackJaafar Ibrahim Sayyed al-Rawi is guided by his motto, “let life be filled with holy madness to the last breath.” He narrates his life story to a friend during one long night in a café in old Cairo. Through a series of bad decisions, he has lost everything: his family, his position in society, and his fortune. A man driven by his passions, he married a beautiful Bedouin nomad for love, and as a consequence pays a punishingly high price. From a life of comfort with a promising future guaranteed by his wealthy grandfather, he descended to the spartan life of a pauper, after being disinherited. Jaafar faces his tribulations with surprising stoicism and hope, sustained by his strong convictions, his spirituality, his sense of mission, and his deep desire to bring social justice to his people. Heart of the Night is a classic Mahfouz gem exploring marriage across class lines, spirituality, and the harsh realities of a precarious, life written by one of Egypt's most celebrated literary masters.

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Khaled, the spoiled idle son of a pasha, meets Malim, carpenter’s apprentice and son of a scoundrel, when he comes to fix a broken window. In the course of his work, Malim stumbles across a stash of money and dutifully hands it in. Khaled cooks up an overly elaborate plot to see that his dastardly father pays Malim his due, but the plot backfires and Malim is thrown in jail. Khaled’s guilt over Malim’s misfortune, made worse by his ridiculous attempts to defend him, result in a decisive moment: he breaks ties with his cruel and tyrannical father, seeking to leave behind the upper-class lifestyle he finds so suffocating. They meet again years later, when Malim has been released from prison and given up on earning an honest living. Khaled gets caught up in Malim’s latest scam and is drawn into joining his commune of eccentrics and failed artists living in a derelict Mamluk citadel.

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Meet the people of Cairo's Gamaliya quarter. There is Nabqa, son of Adam the waterseller who can only speak truths; the beautiful and talented Tawhida who does not age with time; Ali Zaidan, the gambler, late to love; and Boss Saqr who stashes his money above the bath. A neighbourhood of demons, dancing and sweet halva, the quarter keeps quiet vigil over the secrets of all who live there. This collection by pre-eminent Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz was recently discovered among his old papers. Found with a slip of paper titled `for publishing 1994', they are published here for the first time. Resplendent with Mahfouz's delicate and poignant observations of everyday happenings, these lively stories take the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo.

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For Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, Cairo has always been a place of special resonance. As the place in which he was born and has lived his whole life, it is a city he loves passionately and has visited and revisited in his writing. It is the setting for nearly all his novels and short stories, not merely as a backdrop but as an integral part of his fiction, playing its own role in the dramas. The old streets of the Cairo Trilogy and the microcosmic cul-de-sac of Midaq Alley become fictional characters as fascinating as the human ones for Naguib Mahfouz. A longtime admirer of the novels of Naguib Mahfouz, photographer Britta Le Va discovered old Cairo through his works. Here, she guides us through his pages, and treads his streets and alleys, to produce a collection of outstanding visual images of the historic city. Each complements a verbal image selected from Mahfouz's writings. In his introduction, novelist Gamal al-Ghitani describes a walking tour with the great man around the streets of Gamaliya, that historic heart of the old city where both of them--more than thirty years apart--were born and grew up. Along the way, Mahfouz reminisces and remarks on what had changed and what had not in eight decades.

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