Naguib Mahfouz

**Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha** (), ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006), known as **Naguib Mahfouz**, was an Egyptian novelist who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature.

He managed to modernize Arabic literature. He is one of the few writers of Arabic literature who explored themes of existentialism.

## Biography

Naguib Mahfouz was born in the Gamaliya quarter of Cairo and was named after Professor Naguib basha Mahfouz (1882-1974), the renowned Coptic physician who delivered him. In his childhood Mahfouz read extensively. His mother often took him to museums and Egyptian history. later became a major theme in many of his books.

The Egyptian Revolution of 1915 had a strong effect on Mahfouz, although he was at the time only seven years old. From the window he often saw English soldiers firing at the demonstrators, men and women. "You could say," he later noted, "that the one thing which most shook the security of my childhood was the 1919 revolution."

Before the Nobel Prize only a few of his novels had appeared in the West.
Because of his outspoken support for Anwar el Sadat's treaty with Israel, his books were banned in many Arab countries until after he won the Nobel prize.

Like many Egyptian writers and intellectuals, Mahfouz was on a "death list" by Islamic fundamentalists. He defended Salman Rushdie after the Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini condemned him to death, but later he criticized Rushdie's _Satanic Verses_ as "insulting" to Islam.

Before his death, Mahfouz was the oldest living Nobel Literature laureate and the third oldest of all time, only Bertrand Russell and Halldor Laxness were older. At the time of his death, he was the only Arabic-language writer to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

## Related pages

- List of Nobel Prize winners by country

## Other websites

- _The Paris Review_ Interview With Naguib Mahfouz
- Naguib Mahfouz on his English publisher's website
- Nobel Prize press release
- Naguib Mahfouz from Pegasos Author's Calendar
- Cornell biography
- BBC report of death 30 August 2006
- Article dated 31 August 2006 from The Independent: Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz dies aged 94
- Associated Press report dated 31 August 2006 on Naguib Mahfouz's funeral
- Biography and bibliography in French
- -"L'hypothèse naturaliste zolienne dans l'oeuvre de Naguib Mahfouz", by Salah NATIJ - in french, Website **Maduba / Invitation àl'adab**
- Obituary of Naguib Mahfouz published in _Islamica Magazine_
- Fouad Ajami, "The Humanist in the Alleys," _The New Republic_, September 25, 2006, http://www.sais-jhu.edu/programs/mideast/documents/Recent%20Articles/Articles/The%20Humanist%20in%20the%20Alleys.pdf

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: نجيب محفوظ
Naguib Mahfouz
- **image**: Necip Mahfuz.jpg
- **native name**: نجيب محفوظ عبد العزيز إبراهيم أحمد الباشا
- **native name lang**: ar
- **birth name**: Naguib Mahfouz Abdul Aziz Ibrahim Ahmed Pasha
- **birth place**: Gamalya, Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt, Egypt
- **death place**: Agouza, Giza Governorate, Egypt
- **nationality**: Egyptians, Egyptian
- **alma mater**: Cairo University
- **period**: 1932–2004
- **subject**: The Egyptian hara
- **movement**: Literary realism
- **awards**: Nobel Prize in Literature (1988)
- **years active**: 1932–2004