Naguib Mahfouz

NAGUIB MAHFOUZ (1911-2006) was born in the Gamaliya suburb of Cairo, and began writing when he was seventeen. His first novel was published in 1939 and ten more were written before the Egyptian Revolution of July 1952, when he stopped writing for several years. One novel was republished in 1953, however, and the appearance of the Cairo Trilogy – Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street – in 1957 made him famous throughout the Arab world as a depictor of traditional urban life. With The Children of Gebelawi (1959), he began writing again, in a new vein that frequently concealed political judgements under allegory and symbolism. Works of this second period include the novels, The Thief and the Dogs (1961), Autumn Quail (1962), Small Talk on the Nile (1966), and Miramar (1967), as well as several collections of short stories. Almost until he died, he was still creating images, scenes, dreams and allegorical tales, which were published by his English-language publisher, the American University in Cairo Press, along with translations of works originally published in the 1940s.