Can’t believe I missed this news. I have over the last two years been attempting to make myself familiar with his works.

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two links
nobel lecture

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/lau reates/1988/mahfouz-lecture.html

Also, an appreciation by Edward Said:

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=200112 19&fname=said&sid=1&pn=1

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Mahfouz has also ventured into the non-street fiction - ’arabian days and nights’ is a good example.

Children of Gebalawi is a better read then religious books. It takes the characters of Allah, Satan, Adam, Eve, Moses, Jesus and Mohammad and spins a tale around each through a fictionalized character whose story is strikingly similar to that of the prophets. The final tale in the sequence is of an average joe who has learned some science

It should be the real book all kids should read in place of various religious texts - far more interesting too.

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Raw
Miramar was a about a hotel fallen into bad times so to speak. It is set in Egypt in the 1960s. His short stories are also contemporary. He sketches the mores, customs , modern Egypt nicely. Children of Gebelawi was allegorical.

I’ve never read any religious book in it’s entirety.

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swarrier:
come to think of i dont think i ever read any arabic fiction.. well, except quran but that’s just a horribly written book...

i am assuming naguib’s work would be earthy and more close to street-reality than anything.. for some reason, i am thinking of something like italian cinema of 50s.

ixno: noooooo.. it is actually continent of egypt is where africa at... sosorry i wasnt clear the first time...

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ixno
Raw is being funny. Yes he died yesterday. As I mentioned I read only one novel of his but I read his short stories. They were different from the normal European/South American milieu. Egypt for us Indians is so near and yet a little off the beaten track.

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RIP. In fact I came here to start this thread.

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swarrier - you mean he died today? that is sad
and rd shoudlnt that be ’was from egypt located in african continent..
so sorry to nitpick

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Egypt actually. Won the Nobel prize for Lit. One of his books Children of Gebelawi was banned in Egypt for his allegorical potrayal of the Abrahamic faiths. He was stabbed in the neck by some Islamic extremists who assumed there was a fatwa on him.

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oh hmm... i once came across one of his short stories. cant remember now. he ran into trouble with islamist thugs, guess cos of his writings.

ixno: yea.. ’was from africa located in egyptian continent..

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not lite reading which is why have skipped so far.
Isnt he from africa?

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