front cover of After the Nobel Prize 1989-1994
After the Nobel Prize 1989-1994
The Non-fiction Writing of Naguib Mahfouz, Volume IV
Naguib Mahfouz
Gingko, 2015
Naguib Mahfouz, the Arab world’s only Nobel literature laureate, is best known internationally for his short stories and novels, including The Cairo Trilogy. But in Egypt he was equally familiar to newspaper readers for the column he wrote for many years in the leading daily Al-Ahram, in which he reflected on issues of the day from domestic and international events, politics, and economics to historic anniversaries, inspirational personalities, and questions of cultural freedom. This volume brings together the 285 articles he wrote between January 1989 and the near-fatal knife attack in October 1994.
 
In carefully crafted short texts, his social conscience is revealed as he highlights political shortcomings, economic injustice, and corruption in Egypt and the wider Arab world. His philosophical sensitivity comes to the fore as he contemplates the meaning of a historic events, contributions of an influential people, and what is required to lead a good life. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the Oslo peace accords, the spread of terrorism, the Cairo earthquake, the passing of Louis Awad, Yusuf Idris, Yahya Hakki, the third term of Hosni Mubarak, climate change, and more come under Naguib Mahfouz’s fine scrutiny. For any fan of Mahfouz’s fiction, this collection opens a window on a different side of his intellect, and it offers insights from one of the region’s greatest modern minds.
 
[more]

front cover of Essays of the Sadat Era
Essays of the Sadat Era
The Non-Fiction of Naguib Mahfouz: Volume II
Naguib Mahfouz
Gingko, 2025
This volume of articles written by Naguib Mahfouz between 1971 and 1981 serves as a portrait of a volatile period in Egypt’s history, which began with the Corrective Revolution and the Yom Kippur War with Israel and ended with the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat.

In these essays of the Sadat era, published in the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper, Mahfouz seems an unreliable narrator. The tension between an author who rails against censorship, yet is bound within its confines, runs through this fascinating body of nonfiction writing. Nonetheless, Mahfouz’s own thoughts are unmistakably present. We gain his insight into diverse political topics, such as socioeconomic class, democracy and dictatorship, and Islam and extremism, topics which still seem highly pertinent to the situation in Egypt today.

A vital accompaniment to his literature, this collected work is contemporaneous with Mahfouz’s fictional works such as Karnak Café, The Harafish, and Arabian Nights and Days. Essays of the Sadat Era is the second of four volumes in which Mahfouz’s nonfiction work is translated into English for the first time.
[more]

front cover of Essays on Literature and Philosophy
Essays on Literature and Philosophy
The Non-Fiction of Naguib Mahfouz: Volume I
Naguib Mahfouz
Gingko, 2025
The nonfiction writing of Naguib Mahfouz, presented in English for the first time.

The first Arabic language writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Naguib Mahfouz, helped bring Arabic writing to an international readership. This collection of his early writing, from his time as a philosophy student, reveals the intellectual ferment of the young author, grappling with two millennia of philosophers and writers and establishing his own voice among them.

Available in English for the first time, these essays tackle a vast array of subjects, from Presocratic Philosophy to love and the sexual impulse. The intellectual development demonstrated here forms the foundation of Mahfouz’s literary work, granting insight into the mind behind such famed works as the Cairo Trilogy and Children of The Alley.
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter