Naguib Mahfouz
| Naguib Mahfouz | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
December 11, 1911 Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt |
| Died | August 30, 2006 (aged 94) Cairo, Egypt |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | Egyptian |
| Notable works | The Cairo Trilogy |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize for Literature (1988) |
Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic: نجيب محفوظ Nagīb Maḥfūẓ, IPA: [næˈɡiːb mɑħˈfuːzˤ]; December 11, 1911 – August 30, 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism. He published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.
Mahfouz was born into a lower middle-class Muslim family in the medieval Fatimid quarter of Cairo in 1911. He 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 to Abbaseya, 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 a civil servant, and Mahfouz eventually followed in his footsteps in 1934. Mahfouz’s mother, Fatimah, was the daughter of Mustafa Qasheesha, an Al-Azhar sheikh, and although illiterate herself, took the boy Mahfouz on numerous excursions to cultural locations such as the Egyptian Museum and the Pyramids.
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 that "You would never have thought that an artist would emerge from that family."
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