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Naguib Mahfouz[nugEb´ mAkhfOOs´] Pronunciation Key, 1911–, Egyptian novelist and short-story writer, b. Cairo. He is the best-known and most widely respected contemporary writer in Egypt and probably the whole Arab world, and in 1988 he became the first Arabic writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mahfouz's novels are characterized by realistic depictions of social and political life and include fictional explorations of such social issues as the position of women and political prisoners. Stylistically, his works have rejuvenated literary Arabic without recourse to colloquialisms.
Much of Mahfouz's reputation is based on his 1956–57 "Cairo Trilogy," Bayn al-Qasrayn, Qasr ash-Shawq, and As-Sukkariyya (tr. as Palace Walk, 1989, Palace of Desire, 1991, and Sugar Street, 1992) : a sweeping series of novels that traces the history of a middle-class Egyptian Muslim family between 1917 and 1952. The novel Awlad Haratina (1959; tr. Children of Gebelawi, 1981, Children of the Alley, 1995), a semibiblical allegory, includes characters identified with Muhammad and Jesus. Considered blasphemous by some, it remains controversial in the Arabic-speaking world and was banned in Egypt.
In the 1960s Mahfouz abandoned some of his realistic techniques and began to write shorter, faster-paced novels with stream of consciousness narratives and scriptlike dialogue, e.g., The Search (1964, tr. 1991). His other novels include Midaq Alley (1947, tr. 1975) and Miramar (1967, tr. 1978). Among his short stories are God's World (tr. 1973).
Weakened by age and unable to write longer pieces, during his late 80s he began to compose brief dream-based vignettes. Mahfouz has been an outspoken advocate of peace between Egypt and Israel. In 1994 he was stabbed in an assassination attempt, apparently by an Islamic fundamentalist.
See his Echoes of an Autobiography (1998) and Naguib Mahfouz at Sidi Gaber: Reflections of a Nobel Laureate 1994–2001 (2001); M. Beard and A. Haydar, ed., Naguib Mahfouz: From Regional Fame to Global Recognition (1993).
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