Naguib Mahfouz wrote more than 50 novels, five plays and scores of short stories and essays, he depicted with startling realism the Egyptian Everyman balancing between tradition and the modern world. A look at some of the best-known works of the Nobel laureate:
THE CAIRO TRILOGY: Published in the 1950s, this epic trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street, charts the life of a merchant and his extended family living in Islamic Cairo, the 1,000-year-old quarter of the capital where Mahfouz was born. The dominant father casts an enduring shadow over three generations of his family in a tale that stretches over the first part of the 20th Century.
THE CHILDREN OF GEBELAWI or THE CHILDREN OF THE ALLEY (1959): The novel portrays the patriarch Gebelawi who retreats to a mansion he has built in an oasis in the middle of a barren desert, banishing his children. The book is an allegory for the series of prophets that Islam believes includes Jesus and Moses _ Eissa and Moussa in Arabic, and culminates in the Prophet Mohammed. First serialized in Egyptian newspapers in 1959, it was banned in Egypt. In 1994, an attacker inspired by a militant cleric s ruling that the novel was blasphemous, stabbed Mahfouz.
THE THIEF AND THE DOGS (1961): A thief and would-be Marxist revolutionary is released from prison and, angered by society s rejection, plans revenge, but accidentally kills two innocents. The existential novel shows his spiral to self-destruction, much of it taking place in a historic Cairo cemetery.
MIRAMAR (1967): The story of a beautiful peasant girl who comes to work as a maid in an Alexandria hotel and her dealings with its residents. Told by four narrators, each representing different political views, the book was seen as a criticism of the rule of President Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
THE DAY THE LEADER WAS KILLED (1985): A young man and his fiancee struggle with poverty and limited opportunities, trying to get married. The story leads up to the day when President Anwar El-Sadat was assassinated by Islamic militants in 1981, depicting the impact of Sadat s rule on Egypt.
