Awards
Winner 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature
Synopses & Reviews
Review
"A Dickens of the Cairo cafés." Newsweek
Review
"The incredible variety of Naguib Mahfouz's writings continue to dazzle our eyes." The Washington Post
Review
"Naguib Mahfouz virtually invented the novel as an Arab form. He excels at fusing deep emotion and soap opera." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Mahfouz's work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. The Nobel Prize acknowledges the universal significance of his fiction." Los Angeles Times Book Review
About the Author
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, he has been influenced by many Western writers, including Flaubert, Balzac, Zola, Camus, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and, above all, Proust. He has more than thirty novels to his credit, ranging from his earliest historical romances to his most recent experimental novels. In 1988, Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza.