38 Facts About Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz is the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Naguib Mahfouz published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 screenplays, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004.

Many of Naguib Mahfouz's works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films; no Arab writer exceeds Naguib Mahfouz in number of works that have been adapted for cinema and television.

Naguib Mahfouz was born in a lower middle-class Muslim Egyptian family in Old Cairo in 1911.

Naguib Mahfouz was the seventh and the youngest child, with four brothers and two sisters, all of them much older than him.

Naguib Mahfouz's 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.

The Naguib Mahfouz family were devout Muslims and Naguib Mahfouz had a strict Islamic upbringing.

Naguib Mahfouz published his first work in Al Majalla Al Jadida, a magazine started by Salama Musa in 1929.

Naguib Mahfouz then worked as a journalist for Arrissalah, and contributed short stories to Al-Hilal and Al-Ahram.

Naguib Mahfouz served first as a clerk at Cairo University, then, in 1938, in the Ministry of Islamic Endowments as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Islamic Endowments.

Naguib Mahfouz published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of screenplays, and five plays over a 70-year career.

Naguib Mahfouz was a board member of the publisher Dar el-Ma'aref.

Naguib Mahfouz's prose is characterised by the blunt expression of his ideas.

Naguib Mahfouz's written works cover a broad range of topics, including the controversial and taboo such as socialism, homosexuality, and God.

Naguib Mahfouz's stories are almost always set in the heavily populated urban quarters of Cairo, where his characters, usually ordinary people, try to cope with the modernization of society and the temptations of Western values.

Naguib Mahfouz set the story in the parts of Cairo where he grew up.

Naguib Mahfouz stopped writing for some years after finishing the trilogy.

The Children of Gebelawi, one of Naguib Mahfouz's best known works, portrayed the patriarch Gebelaawi and his children, average Egyptians living the lives of Cain and Abel, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed.

Naguib Mahfouz espoused Egyptian nationalism in many of his works, and expressed sympathies for the post-World-War-era Wafd Party.

Naguib Mahfouz was attracted to socialist and democratic ideals early in his youth.

Naguib Mahfouz was disillusioned with the 1952 revolution and by Egypt's defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Naguib Mahfouz had supported the principles of the revolution, but became disenchanted, saying that the practices failed to live up to the original ideals.

Naguib Mahfouz's writing influenced a new generation of Egyptian lawyers, including Nabil Mounir and Reda Aslan.

Naguib Mahfouz's work is imbued with love for Egypt and its people, but it is utterly honest and unsentimental.

Naguib Mahfouz was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature, the only Arab writer to have won the award.

Shortly after winning the prize Naguib Mahfouz was quoted as saying:.

The Swedish letter to Naguib Mahfouz praised his "rich and complex work":.

Naguib Mahfouz did not shrink from controversy outside of his work.

Naguib Mahfouz defended British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini condemned Rushdie to death in a 1989 fatwa, but criticized Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses as "insulting" to Islam.

Naguib Mahfouz believed in freedom of expression, and, although he did not personally agree with Rushdie's work, he spoke out against the fatwa condemning him to death for it.

In 1989, after Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa calling for Rushdie and his publishers to be killed, Naguib Mahfouz called Khomeini a terrorist.

Naguib Mahfouz was given police protection, but in 1994 an extremist succeeded in attacking the 82-year-old novelist by stabbing him in the neck outside his Cairo home.

Naguib Mahfouz survived, permanently affected by damage to nerves of his right upper limb.

Naguib Mahfouz remained a bachelor until age 43 because he believed that, with its numerous restrictions and limitations, marriage would hamper his literary future.

Naguib Mahfouz's legacy is considered a cornerstone of Modern Egyptian culture, his books are republished all the time, Cairo International Book Fair celebrated Naguib Mahfouz more than once.

Naguib Mahfouz's books keeps getting adapted into films and TV series in Egypt or internationally, such as Mexican adaptation of Midaq Alley starring Salma Hayek in 1995, and Egyptian TV series Afrah AlQoba, Bayn El Samaa Wa El Ard and Hadith Alsabah wa Almassaa among others.

In 2019, Egyptian Ministry of Culture opened Naguib Mahfouz museum located in Old Cairo, near Wikala of al-Ghuri, Muzz Street and Azhar mosque, where most of Mahfouz novels take place, the museum have different collectibles from Mahfouz's life such as his hat, desk, photographs and his awards including Nobel Medal.

In 2021, Egyptian actor Ahmed Helmy announced that he's working on a biographical TV series about Naguib Mahfouz's life, Starring Helmy as Naguib Mahfouz and written by Abdelreheem Kamal.