The biography and bibliography (in Italian) of Naguib Mahfouz, one of the greatest Arab writers of all time and the only one to win the Nobel Prize for Literature Biography: the origins of Naguib Mahfouz Naguib Mahfouz was born Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha on December 11, 1911, in Cairo’s historic Gamaleya district, to a middle-class Muslim family. The youngest of seven children (four brothers and two sisters), the future great Egyptian writer was born through a difficult and troubled birth, so much so that the name Naguib Mahfouz is a tribute from his parents to Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, a great Coptic physician considered the father of contemporary Egyptian gynecology and obstetrics.

A young Naguib Mahfouz The son of a civil servant and the daughter of the sheikh of the prestigious al-Azhar University, he witnessed the 1919 Revolution against the British occupiers, a moment that, along with his move to the El-Abaseya neighborhood, had a significant impact on his subsequent literary career. In 1930, he was admitted to the Faculty of Philosophy at Cairo University, graduating in 1934.

The beginning of literary production Upon completing his studies, the young Naguib immediately began working as a clerk at his own university, while also dedicating himself to writing for magazines such as Majalla al Jadida, founded in 1929 by Salama Moussa, one of the authors who most influenced his thinking. In 1938, he published his first collection of short stories, “Hams Al-Junun” (English:

“Whisper of Madness”), launching one of the most prolific literary careers in the contemporary Arab world, with 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of screenplays, and no less than five plays. Also in 1938, he began working at the Ministry of Awqaf (Muslim Pious Donations), but increasingly devoted himself to writing, producing several works, including his first novel, “Hikmat Khufu” (English:

“The Curse of Cheops”). In the 1950s, he served as director of censorship at the Arts Office, director of the Film Support Foundation, and finally as a consultant to the Ministry of Culture.

Always very reserved in his private life, in 1954 he secretly married Atiyyatallah Ibrahim, a Coptic woman from Alexandria with whom he had two daughters: Fatima and Umm Kulthum.

Glory and international recognition Between 1956 and 1957 he created “The Cairo Trilogy”, still considered one of his masterpieces today, while in 1959 he published ʾAwlād ḥāratnā (in English “Children of Gebelawi”), one of his most important and famous works ever which unfortunately was censored for many years in much of the Arab world due to its plot which was considered (wrongly) provocative towards religion. In 1988, he became the first and only Arab writer to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, also actively fighting against all forms of censorship, which led to an assassination attempt in 1994.

With the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the 1990s, more and more extremists threatened him for “The Boys’ Ward” and his decision to oppose Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie for his “The Satanic Verses,” even leading to him being stabbed in the back in 1994. Although not fatal, the latter permanently damaged his nervous system, leading him to dedicate himself less and less to writing until his death on August 30, 2006, at the age of 94.

Bibliography (in Italian) by Naguib Mahfouz: Naguib Mahfouz’s works have currently been published in Italian, with 32 being his works.

Since he is one of the authors whose works have been published in a massive number of publications and editions, the year listed does not refer to the first Italian edition, but to the original language edition. “La maledizione di Cheope” published by Newton & Compton (1939) Khufu learns from the soothsayer Djedi of the end of his lineage.

He, the pharaoh, will be the last of his lineage to reign over Egypt. Someone else will succeed him on the throne.

It will be a man who, now, is a newborn in the city of Awn, an infant fathered by Man-Râ, the high priest of Râ, and his young wife Radde Didit. Khufu and his cruel son, Prince Rekhaef, set out to hunt down the future usurper, but, by a twist of fate, the child is saved and will be raised by the servant Zaya, who will raise him in the home of her new consort.

“Rhadopis. La cortigiana del faraone” published by Newton & Compton (1943) The very young Pharaoh Merenre II, recently installed on the throne alongside his sister, Queen Nitocris, is inevitably captivated by the mystery of love.

The skilled courtesan Rhadopis, of enigmatic beauty, also falls prey to passion for her lord. But the powerful priestly caste, jealous guardians of their prerogatives and the traditions of the sacred temples, conspires to overthrow Merenre, who seems to put his insatiable thirst for power, his pride, and his desires before the interests of the state.

“La battaglia di Tebe” published by Newton & Compton (1944) In the 16th century BC, Egypt was the scene of a thrilling chapter in history: the Battle of Thebes, through which Pharaoh Ahmose managed to free his land from the invasion of the Hyksos, a greedy and bloodthirsty people of Semitic descent. Thus began the New Kingdom, which allowed Egypt to return to its former glory.

In this novel, Naguib Mahfouz brings to life the events and characters that shaped this epic. “Per le strade del Cairo” published by Newton & Compton (1945) Cairo, 1942.

World War II rages, and air raids rain down on the city, sowing panic among the population. The Akif family moves to the historic Khan al-Khalili neighborhood, where the presence of numerous mosques and monuments makes the risk of bombing less likely.

Ahmad reluctantly accepts his father’s decision. A solitary and introverted forty-year-old government employee, Ahmad has given up everything to support his disgraced family and for years has lived a solitary life, studying and reading.

He is attached to the affluent al-Sakakini neighborhood, where he has always lived, and is convinced that the new, noisy working-class neighborhood will not satisfy his intellectual needs. But the maze of narrow streets crowded with cafes, junk shops, and taamiya stalls, the children playing in the streets, and the intense spicy scents wafting from the terraces will open his heart to new, unexpected emotions and lead him to reflect on himself and his life… “Vicolo del mortaio” published by Feltrinelli (1947) “Vicolo del Mortaio” is a slightly ironic and detached description of daily life in a Cairo alley during the Second World War.

Mahfouz offers a vivid portrait of a suffering, often very miserable, humanity: the exploiter of beggars who procures permanent mutilations for a fee; the café owner, exacerbated by a homosexual inclination and drug addiction; the young barber who seeks to sanctify his love for the Alley through his love for a young woman, Hamida; and then Hamida herself, whose desire to escape the squalor of her native neighborhood foreshadows radical rebellion, the hallmark of an eternal and universal “youthfulness,” opposed to any form of immobility. Mahfouz depicts all this with simplicity and exotic refinement, balancing dialogue and moments of reflection so as to always leave a gap between one episode and the next.

Ultimately, it is life, in its essential and dramatic nakedness, that imposes itself on everyone as a sort of rebalancing deus ex machina. “Il miraggio” published by Tullio Pironti (1948) This is the story of the fascinating Kamel and the events that unfold throughout his tormented existence.

Raised in the shadow of an unhappy mother, a victim of her own shyness, Kamel manages to be truly himself and overcome his anxieties only when he’s intoxicated by alcohol. His life is changed completely by his encounter with a fat, ugly woman and, subsequently, by the mysterious death of Rabab, his first wife.

This event is told with the pace of a gripping thriller. “Principio e fine” published by Tullio Pironti (1948) “Principio e fine” is set in Cairo between 1933 and 1938, in Egypt during the monarchy, still highly hierarchical.

With the death of their father, a lower-middle-class family loses the economic support that had guaranteed them a peaceful and dignified life. From an existence sheltered from any inappropriate social contact, the family falls into the abyss of poverty and is swallowed up in the vortex of the now inevitable daily compromises.

Trilogia del Cairo: “Tra i due palazzi” published by Crocetti (1956) Coming Soon on Medio Oriente e Dintorni Originally published in Arabic between 1956 and 1957, the Cairo Trilogy, which earned its author the Nobel Prize, narrates the history of Egypt through the eyes of a family of lower-middle-class Cairo merchants, from the early 1900s to the 1952 military coup that overthrew King Farouk and brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to power.

The three volumes trace three generations of the family of Sayyed Ahmad Abdel Gawad, the tyrannical patriarch who rules his family with a stern hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence. In this first novel, Mahfouz depicts Cairo society with characters both obedient and beautifully sensual, amidst respectable women and belly dancing, austere men and alcoholic beverages.

At the center of the intrigue is the Ahmad family: the patriarch’s wife, the oppressed yet gentle Amina; her daughters Aisha and Khadiga, always shut in at home; and their three sons, the tragic and idealistic Fahmi, the dissolute hedonist Yasin, and the intellectual Kamal. The family’s difficulties mirror those of their turbulent country during the years between the two world wars, as change arrives in a society that has remained unchanged for centuries.

A masterpiece by a literary genius. An irresistible, touching, and funny family saga that paints a portrait of a microcosm unknown to us, free of censorship or moralism.

“Because love is like health: it matters little when it’s there and becomes precious when fate separates us from it.” Trilogia del Cairo: “Il palazzo del desiderio” published by Crocetti (1957) This is the second of three novels in the trilogy.

It narrates the events of a Cairo family, alternating them with descriptions of significant historical events, providing a sweeping portrait of Egyptian life with vivid images that transport us to a distant, exotic, yet fascinating world. The main protagonist is Kamal, a lover of poetry and philosophy, respectful of traditional morality, and deeply rooted in nationalist ideas.

As he clashes with the world and its cruelties, he gradually loses all his dreams of purity and beauty: Kamal, or the disenchantment of life.

Trilogia del Cairo: “La via dello zucchero” published by Crocetti (1957) It is the final novel in the “Cairo Trilogy,” the seminal work of Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer who won the Nobel Prize in 1988.

This volume concludes a fascinating triptych that can be understood and admired individually, but which, in its overall grandeur, best expresses the inspiration and talent of the Egyptian writer. The novel’s theme is the city of Cairo: through its ancient streets and its new metropolis, dreams and nostalgia, religious faiths and political utopias of the old and the young intertwine in a ceaseless movement of life that makes the passage of time dense and poignant.

“Il rione dei ragazzi” published by Marietti (1959) Children of Gebelawi it is a metaphor singularly permeated with realism, in which the often crude representation of environments and situations becomes a symbol of the world, of humanity. The “boys”, the sons of Ghabàlawi, are the protagonists of an existential itinerary that reflects the stages of the Quranic revelation from Adam to Moses, from Jesus to Muhammad, up to the current crisis of values, represented by the figure of the modern scientist, son of theory of the “death of God”.

Mahfuz’s style, “… rich in nuances, now realistic for clarity of view, now evocatively ambiguous” (from the motivation of the Nobel Prize), is clearly proposed in this fundamental novel in the vast production of a writer who loves to refer to tradition oral by popular narrators of Cairo, but which also includes the most up-to-date results of world fiction. “Il ladro e i cani” published by Feltrinelli (1961) A thief leaves prison after serving his sentence, ready to take revenge on those who betrayed him.

In the heat of revenge, however, Said Maharan will kill 2 innocents, thus leading his life to a sad and inevitable end. “Autunno egiziano” published by Newton & Compton (1962) Set in Cairo during the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, “Egyptian Autumn” tells the story of Isa al-Dabbagh, a government official.

Following the popular uprisings that accompanied the overthrow of King Farouk I, Isa is summarily dismissed on charges of corruption. While acknowledging the reasons for the Revolution, he nevertheless believes he has always acted according to the rules.

He stubbornly rejects the recommendations of his influential cousin Hasan and gradually loses the trust and love of his betrothed, Salwa. His entire life slowly slides toward failure and desolation, while his country grapples with the ambiguities and disruption created by the political tensions of a turbulent period.

“La ricerca” published by Tullio Pironti (1964) After burying his mother, a prominent brothel owner in Alexandria, Sabir sets out for Cairo in search of his father, whose existence he learned only on her deathbed. There, he finds himself torn between his pure, platonic love for Ilham, a newspaper employee he turned to in order to find his father, and his blind, carnal, and passionate love for Karima, the owner of the modest hotel where he stays.

As inexorable as the story it tells, “La ricerca” finds its greatest charm in the sense of irreparable fate that awaits the protagonist with each passing page. “Il mendico” published by Tullio Pironti (1965) The Beggar is a 1965 short story about the inability to find meaning in life.

It is set in post-revolutionary Cairo during the reign of Gamal Abdel Nasser and follows Omar, a local poet and socialist. “Chiacchiere sul Nilo” published by Tullio Pironti (1966) A boat anchored on the banks of the Nile, home to a modest clerk, Anis Zaki, is the gathering place for six regular guests.

Every evening, the friends gather to smoke hashish and engage in long conversations: it’s their way of escaping the monotony of their existence. The arrival of a young journalist and a car accident, one night on the road to the pyramids, disrupt this lazy and unrealistic microcosm, forcing everyone to face the harsh reality.

The novel clearly condemns a resigned and inept class. “Miramar” published by Feltrinelli (1967) “Alexandria at the end.

Alexandria, rain of dew, eruption of white clouds. Cradle of rays washed in the water of heaven, heart of memories soaked in honey and tears.” Thus begins the story of the Miramar, the guesthouse of a somewhat decayed elegance that preserves traces of a grandiose past beneath the damp stains.

But the true protagonist is Alexandria, which offers a complex and profound portrait of Egypt, of its contradictory and problematic soul, with a sense of nostalgia that nevertheless knows how to mix with a smile. It’s 1966.

At the Miramar, guests parade, embodying the different souls of Egyptian society. In a constant alternation between past and present, from narrator to narrator, the stories of the various guests unfold:

Amor Wagdi, a retired journalist who served in the liberal nationalist party and now returns to the Miramar after twenty years to settle there and never leave again; the elderly aristocrat Tolba Marzuq; the young conqueror Sarhan al-Buheiri; the landowner Hosni Allam; the Radio Alexandria announcer Mansur Bahi; as well as the guesthouse’s owner, Mariana, and her maid, Zahra, a beautiful young peasant whose relationships with others symbolically reflect the country’s main political and social realities. “La taverna del Gatto Nero” published by Tullio Pironti (1969) The black cat prowling in the shadows of a Cairo tavern, in the story that gives this collection its title, embodies the anxieties that permeate everyone’s consciousness.

Mahfouz’s writing demonstrates that literature, when faithful to its commitment to representing life without prejudice, even through dreams and fantasies, remains a powerful means of communication that transcends differences in cultural tradition. Perhaps life itself is nothing but a great tale, endlessly unfolding, in which each person takes on the role of participating narrator or anxious listener.

“Il caffè degli intrighi” published by Ripostes (1974) Centered on discussions among patrons at a Cairo café, the Karnak Café, the book follows the stories of three individuals during the 1960s, including the Six-Day War (1967) and the War of Attrition (1967–70). In it, she explores some of the political currents that vied for control of Egyptian politics in the 1960s, as well as political persecution, the deep state, and state violence.

“Il nostro quartiere” published by Feltrinelli (1975) The chronicles of a neighborhood told through the everyday life of its inhabitants: the reality and fantasies of a world in which the arcana of oriental tradition and the subtle charm of European civilization interpenetrate. Reality as a representation of the events that mark the life of the district (the sounds and smells of the little streets, the views captured from the windows, the objects, the rumors and the feelings), and fantasy as an instrument of knowledge of the forms and essences that compose infinitely repeat, the cycle of birth, life and death.

Realtà come raffigurazione degli eventi che scandiscono la vita del rione (i suoni e gli afrori delle stradicciole, le vedute carpite dalle finestre, gli oggetti, le dicerie e i sentimenti), e fantasia come strumento di conoscenza delle forme e delle essenze che compongono, e infinitamente ripetono, il ciclo nascita, vita e morte. “Un uomo da rispettare” published by Newton & Compton (1975) Othman Bayyumi begins his civil servant career at the lowest level, that of assistant archivist, but he is determined to reach the position of director general of the ministry and intends to devote all his energies to this goal.

His all-consuming ambition, lived with the fanaticism of a religion of power (and the respect that power bestows on those who wield it), will be the altar on which, in a lucid and relentless race, he will sacrifice his affections, loves, and pastimes. Those who wish to rise from the poverty in which they were born and have always lived, to leave the poverty-stricken suburbs, are not afforded the luxury of any distraction: neither friendship nor love will therefore have any place in Othman’s life, but only tenacious dedication, an iron will to climb the hierarchy.

With skillful brushstrokes, Mahfuz’s narrative paints the surreal psychology of a man whose obsession constitutes the very centre of his existence, the knot around which, with desperate obstinacy, his life of solitude takes on the sense of a voluntary sacrifice, of a useless dream. “Il settimo cielo”* published by Tullio Pironti (1979) Love, friendship, passion, and aggression pushed to the extreme limit of murder.

The exploration of the human soul leads Mahfuz to adopt tones of psychological thriller and surrealism in his writing, blurring the lines between the possible and the impossible with surprising skill. The story that gives the collection its title will delight esoteric scholars, proposing the hypothesis of a transmigration of souls between opposites: from the murdered to the murderer, from one enemy to another, from a lost family to one being reborn… *:

The Italian translation by Tullio Pironti translated the title of this book (originally “Al-ḥubb fawqa hadabat al-ḥaram”, translated into English as “Love above the Pyramid Plateau”) as “The Seventh Heaven”, not being able to know that in 2005 Mahfuz would give his latest work the title of “Seventh Heaven” (in Arabic “Al Samaa al Sabi3at”). “L’epopea degli Harafish” published by Tullio Pironti (1977) Between mosques and cafes, opium dens and matrons’ houses, the dramatic story of the Naghi is told.

A family of humble origins, they repeatedly experience periods of severe economic hardship, periods of prosperity due to their achieved power and consequent prestige, only to be plunged back into poverty due to debauchery. The story begins with Ashur, a foundling who, having become a “futuwwa,” or “guappo,” develops his own policy of extorting protection money from the rich in order to help the Harafish, the poorest and most needy.

Ashur thus becomes, in the eyes of his people, a symbol of justice and faith, and his days will be considered by the Harafish as “their” days of glory. “Il tempo dell’amore” published by Tullio Pironti (1980) It’s the story of Sitt Ain, a wealthy and generous woman, considered by all to be the “mother” of the alley; but it’s also the story of her son Izzat, very different from her, and his great and only friend Hamdun.

The two young men are both in love with the beautiful Baddriya, and for her sake, Izzat betrays his close friend, sending an anonymous letter to the police to reveal Hamdun’s membership in a clandestine political organization. Twenty-five years later, Hamdun is released from prison… “Notti delle Mille ed una notte” published by Feltrinelli (1981) After a thousand and one nights, Shahrazad managed to save her life:

Sultan Shahriyar pardoned the cunning Shahrazad and took her as his wife. But what happened to the sultan?

Did her tales change him? A Thousand and One Nights begins here, where The Thousand and One Nights—the literary masterpiece of Arab culture—ended.

The news of Shahriyar and Shahrazad’s wedding brings rejoicing to the subjects, all hoping that her storytelling skills have softened his heart and persuaded him to rule with justice. However, it will take a thousand and one real days to teach the tyrant, at his own expense, what imagination and invention have failed to teach him.

It will be the daily administration of the kingdom that will reveal to him the true nature of the abuse of law and power. And it will be real people who will introduce him to the characters previously only imagined thanks to Shahrazad’s tales.

“Canto di nozze” published by Feltrinelli (1981) Abbas Karam Younis, a young idealist, writes his first play, revealing the most intimate and sordid secrets of his family and the friends who gravitate around him: gambling, prostitution, alcohol, drugs, murder. The connection with reality is so strong that it opens a dark corridor between performance and life.

Against the backdrop of Cairo and its theaters, four characters recount love and jealousy, passion and death, transforming the script they prepare to perform into the canvas of existence. “Il viaggio di Ibn Fattouma” published by Newton & Compton (1983) When the woman he loves and hopes to marry is unjustly taken from him by a more powerful man, Ibn Fattouma decides to set out to reach the mythical land of Jebel, from which no one has ever returned and where he hopes to find wisdom and knowledge for himself and his people.

To reach it, his caravan must cross five nations, each with its own religion and government. The first is Mashriq, subject to a despot and inhabited by naked slaves who praise the Moon; then Haira, a theocratic nation ruled by the army; the third is Halba, a land of extreme freedom; next comes Aman, a society where justice and order reign but where there seems to be no room for emotion; and finally Ghuroub, where the cult of Reason reigns.

Ibn Fattouma is initially fascinated by each, but eventually realizes that pain and war reign everywhere, so much so that he fears that the land of Jebel itself is but a dream. “Akhenaton, il faraone eretico” published by Newton & Compton (1985) Miri-Mon left Sais to travel with his father to Panapolis to visit his sister.

During the journey, passing near a forbidden city, Miri-Mon asked his father to tell him what had happened there. It was, in fact, the city of the heretic, better known as Akhenaten, a sacrilegious and cursed place where only Nefertiti, the widow of the pharaoh, now lived.

Young Miri-Mon then remembered that as a child he had been told stories of a pharaoh who had broken with tradition and defied the gods and his own destiny. Miri-Mon’s curiosity will lead him to Akhenaten, the cursed city, where he will be captivated by the beauty of Nefertiti.

“Il giorno in cui fu ucciso il leader” published by Newton & Compton (1985) This time, Mahfouz profiles a middle-class Cairo family during the early 1980s, under Sadat’s presidency. It was a transitional era in Egypt, a time of profound crisis in which ordinary people of all backgrounds and backgrounds were being pushed toward the so-called abyss of Infitah.

In this mad rush, everything was overshadowed by a sense of “end,” a sense of panic, as innocent people watched helplessly as their world rapidly disintegrated. An entire way of life, with its ancient traditions and values passed down from generation to generation, was crumbling, paving the way for a new, ruthless materialism in the kingdom of the corrupt, where only the strongest could survive.

“Echi di una autobiografia” published by Tullio Pironti (1994) “The essence of a writer lies in his work, not in his personality, because the content of life always flows through his work”: these are the words of Nadine Gordimer, another Nobel Prize winner in Literature, who wrote the preface to this quasi-autobiography of the Egyptian Nobel Prize winner. Mahfouz tells his story through other stories and other voices in this singular work, where he has chosen ancient forms of writing—parables, aphorisms, allegories—which are perhaps best suited to charting the life of a man born way back on December 11, 1912.

There are no dates or anecdotes (as is usually the case in this form of writing), but the passages that comprise the text tell us more about the author than a standard autobiographical narrative would. “These passages,” says Nadine Gordimer, “are meditations that echo what the writer Mahfouz was, has been, and is.

They are, to use the title of one of his texts, the Dialogue of a Late Afternoon.” “Il Settimo cielo” published by Newton & Compton (2005) Naguib Mahfuz’s fame rests primarily on his ability to depict the contemporary world with vivid realism. But equally ingenious and fascinating are the narratives the Nobel Prize winner for Literature has dedicated to the supernatural and the afterlife.

Thus, in this collection, the reader encounters a man who comes face to face with the spirits of the past, in what he mistakenly believes to be the first of the seven heavens of Paradise; a teenager who braves the dangers of a forest outside the city and ends up in the midst of an enchanted world; a perfume salesman who is visited and threatened by a group of vengeful skeletons during the night; a baffled Satan who confesses to having found, amidst the current decadence of humanity as a whole, a man with a pure heart. “Racconti dell’antico Egitto” published by Newton & Compton (?)* Drawn from the Egyptian writer’s vast body of work, the five stories collected in this volume are inspired by his country’s ancient past.

Written between the 1930s and 1940s, they are loosely based on popular or ancient literature, which Mahfouz has reinterpreted by combining historical observation with timeless imagination, placing them among the avant-garde literary texts of the era. *: pare che siano effettivamente racconti scritti da Mahfuz ma, non avendo il libro, non siamo in grado di stabilire se sia un’opera vera e propria o una selezione/antologia Do you want to donate some of these books to the Middle East and surrounding areas in order to create ad hoc content? Write me in private Follow me on facebook, Spotify, YouTube and Instagram, or on the Telegram channel; find all the links in one place: here.

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