Naguib Mahfouz was born on December 11, 1911 in the district of Al-Jamaliyya in Old Cairo and lived with his father, mother, four brothers and two sisters. When he was twelve, his family moved to Al-Abasiyya, a new Cairo suburb. Although Mahfouz had left his earlier district, it remained in his memory to the extent that many of his novels e.g., Midaq Alley and the Trilogy were set in Al-Jamaliyya, the district of his birth. Mahfouz’s life in Al-Jamalliyya provided him with the needed background, framework and mood for the events of his large cast of fictional characters. Naguib Mahfouz as a novelist, is the most well-known and renowned Arab writer in the West. He received the Nobel Prize for …show more content…
When he started his novel-writing in the 1940s, it was a relatively new genre, not only in Egypt, but also in other Arabic speaking countries in general. This is not to say that he was one of the pioneers of the genre, but as a writer, he combined quality with quantity. His skillfulness can be noticed in the precise details, in describing the physical emergences of his characters, aspects of human behaviour, as well as people’s mentalities. Considering his success in handling human, personal, and social needs, it is no wonder that he is widely read. Having a look at the scope of his writing, one can tell that his knowledge and experiences are not limited to books and the world of the written word. They rather get inside people’s real daily lives and issues. In his Nobel Prize address, Professor Lars Gyllensten, the …show more content…
(1993: 1–2)
In his book, Naguib Mahfouz: the Pursuit of Meaning (1993), El-Enany provides a biographical sketch of Mahfouz’s works based on historical, religious and social changes within Egypt during the period between 1930 and 1990. In another article on Mahfouz’s death, entitled ‘Egyptian Elegy’, he writes that:
There is no better record for a student of Egyptian politics and society in the 20th century than the 35 novels and 15 odd collections of short stories that is Mahfouz’s legacy of love for his country and humanity. From the 1930s to the 1990s and beyond, he has been a keen and indefatigable observer of his nation, and the ravishes of time it has lived through: it is all there one era after another in one tome after another, throbbing with life and immediacy. (2006: