Bøker av Naguib Mahfouz

Filled with compelling drama, earthy humour and remarkable insight, this book traces three generations of the family of tyrannical patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his household with a strict hand while living a secret life of self-indulgence.

Newly discovered collection of unpublished stories by key figure and Nobel Prize winner in literature, these fable-like stories carry Mahfouz's signature observations of the human character, taking the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo

Ahmad, a middle-class shopkeeper runs his household strictly according to the Qur'an while at night he explores the pleasures of Cairo. A tyrant at home, Ahmad forces his gentle, oppressed wife and two daughters to live cloistered lives behind the house's latticed windows, while his three very different sons live in fear of his harsh will.

After an assassination attempt in his twilight years, Naguib Mahfouz became a recluse, going out rarely and receiving visitors in his hotel. Cautious and in ill-health, he could only roam the city freely in his dreams. In this mix of vivid vignettes linked together by the author's precisely rendered nightly wanderings through Cairo, figures from Mahfouz's personal life blend with his anxieties about Egypt's political past and future. Each dream is layered with philosophical musings, hopes and desperations, fidelities and disappointments. Over the course of the book they build to a lush and complex picture of Mahfouz' subconscious.

On a school playground in the stylish Cairo suburb of Abbasiya, five young boys become friends for life, making a nearby cafe, Qushtumur, their favorite gathering spot forever. One is the narrator, who, looking back in his old age on their seven decades together, makes the other four the heroes of his tale, a Proustian (and classically Mahfouzian) quest in search of lost time and the memory of a much-changed place. In a seamless stream of personal triumphs and tragedies, their lives play out against the backdrop of two world wars, the 1952 Free Officers coup, the defeat of 1967 and the redemption of 1973, the assassination of a president, and the simmering uncertainties of the transitional 1980s. But as their nation grows and their neighborhood turns from the green, villa-studded paradise of their youth to a dense urban desert of looming towers, they still find refuge in the one enduring landmark in their ever-fading world: the humble coffeehouse called Qushtumur.

On his 'journey from the dreams of the jinn to the love of the truth' Jaafar Ibrahim Sayyed al-Rawi is guided by his motto, 'let life be filled with holy madness to the last breath'. He goes from a life of comfort with a promising future guaranteed by his wealthy grandfather, Sayyed al-Rawi, to the life of a pauper.

This boxset consists of a collection of newspaper articles and earlier essays, presented in four volumes. Each volume is introduced by Professor Rasheed El-Enany (University of Exeter).

In these essays Mahfouz comments on Egyptian politics, the role of Parliament and the institutional changes that took place in Egypt after Honsi Mubarak became President in 1981.

In these essays Naguib Mahfouz comments on Egyptian politics, the role of Parliament, and the institutional changes that took place in Egypt after Honsi Mubarak became President in 1981.

Known and loved throughout Egypt as a work that celebrates the national character, Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz's Thebes at War tells of a high point in Egyptian history-ancient Egypt's defeat of Asiatic foreigners who had dominated northern Egypt for two hundred years.With a visit from a court official and a provocative insult, the southern pharaoh's long simmering resentment boils over, leading him to commit himself and his heirs to an epic struggle for the throne. Filled with the grand clash of armies, staggering defeats, daring escapes, and glorious victories, and written at a time when Egypt was again under the sway of foreign powers, Thebes at War is a resounding call to remember Egypt's long and noble history.

Originally published in Arabic as oHawla l-Adab wa-l-Falsafa. Copyright A 2015 Dar Al Masriah Al Lubnaniah, Cairo.

This highly charged fable set in Alexandria, Egypt, in the late 1960s, centers on the guests of the Pension Miramar as they compete for the attention of the young servant Zohra. Zohra is a beautiful peasant girl who fled her family to escape an arranged marriage. She becomes the focus of jealousies and conflicts among the Miramar''s residents, who include an assortment of radicals and aristocrats floundering in the wake of the Egyptian revolution. It becomes clear that the uneducated but strong-willed Zohra is the only one among them who knows what she wants. As the situation spirals toward violence and tragedy, the same sequence of events is retold from the perspective of four different residents, in the manner of Akira Kurosawa''s Rashomon, weaving a nuanced portrait of the intricacies of post-revolutionary Egyptian life.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988,  Naguib Mahfouz is perhaps the best-known living  Arab writer. His books have had great success in  this country, particularly The Cairo  Trilogy. Fans of the famed trilogy will be  delighted with The Harafish, an epic  novel that chronicles the dramatic history of the  al-Nagi family -- a family that  moves, over many generations, from the height of power  and glory to the depths of decadence and decay.  The Harafish begins with the tale  of Ashur al-Nagi, a man who  grows from humble beginnings to become a great leader,  a legend among his people. Generation after  generation, however, Ashur''s descendants grow further  from his legendary example. They lose touch with  their origins as they amass and then squander large  fortunes, marry prostitutes when they marry at all,  and develop rivalries that end in death. The  community''s upper class keeps a watchful eye on the  descendants of al-Nagi for fear  of losing their privileges, but they find no threat  of another such as Ashur. Not, that is, until the  al-Nagi who, like his noble  ancestor, finds his power once again from among  The Harafish, or the common people.  Through the strength of their numbers and their  passion, the glory of the name of  al-Nagi is restored. "Of all  [Mahfouz''s] experiments in recent decades, this  is the one which owes least to western inspiration  and is probably the most successful. The  Harafish, fluently translated by  Catherine Cobham, makes accessible and engrossing reading."  -- The Washington Post Book  World.

Naguib Mahfouz's haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid pychological portrait of an anguished man with the suspense and rapid pace of a detective story.After four years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchman, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married to each other and are keeping his six-year-old daughter from him. But in the most bitter betrayal, his mentor, Rauf Ilwan, once a firebrand revolutionary who convinced Said that stealing from the rich in a unjust society is an act of justice, is now himself a rich man, a respected newspaper editor who wants nothing to do with the disgraced Said. As Said's wild attempts to achieve his idea of justice badly misfire, he becomes a hunted man so driven by hatred that he can only recognize too late his last chance at redemption.

The books' titles are taken from actual streets in Cairo, the city of Mahfouz's childhood and youth. The trilogy follows the life of the Cairene patriarch al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad and his family across three generations, from World War I to the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952.

As Cairo shrugs off the final vestiges of colonialism, Ahmad Al Jawad has lost his power and surveys the world from a latticed balcony. Unable to control his family's destiny, he watches helplessly as his dynasty and the traditions he holds dear disintegrate before his eyes. But through Ahamd's three grandsons we see modern how Egypt takes shape.

Follows the Al Jawad family into the awakening world of the 1920's and the sometimes violent clash between Islamic ideals, personal dreams and modern realities. Having given up his vices after his son's death, ageing patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad pursues an arousing lute-player - only to find she has married his eldest son.

Widely acclaimed as Naguib Mahfouz's best novel, Midaq Alley brings to life one of the hustling, teeming back alleys of Cairo in the 1940s. From Zaita the cripple-maker to Kirsha the hedonistic cafe owner, from Abbas the barber who mistakes greed for love to Hamida who sells her soul to escape the alley, from waiters and widows to politicians, pimps, and poets, the inhabitants of Midaq Alley vividly evoke Egypt's largest city as it teeters on the brink of change. Never has Nobel Prize-winner Mahfouz's talent for rich and luxurious storytelling been more evident than here, in his portrait of one small street as a microcosm of the world on the threshold of modernity.

In this collection Mahfouz deals with diverse political topics such as socio-economic class, democracy and dictatorship, Islam and extremism.