Overview

Although he had largely stopped writing fiction by the end of the 1980s, Naguib Mahfouz continued to pen essays for al-Ahram newspaper, offering letters of advice and reflection to his beloved Egyptian public. His steady outpouring was not to be stopped until his attempted assassination in 1994, when a young man, in the grip of religious extremism, stabbed the author in the neck. In the years approaching the attack, Mahfouz wrote with empathy and forgiveness for those who turn in desperation to terrorism. These remarkably prescient essays display a mature and measured reaction to the increasingly violent world Mahfouz perceived around him. With their unwavering commitment to tolerance, democracy, and hope in dark times, his essays feel as pertinent today as they were thirty years ago. Essays of His Later Years is the last of four volumes in which Mahfouz’s non-fiction is translated into English for the first time.

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9781914983443

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Reviews

‘It is only with the publication of… Mahfouz’s non-fiction writing that there is a body of journalism and essays through which to trace Mahfouz’s intellectual journey.’

Author Information

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was the greatest Arab writer of the twentieth century. Born in the old Islamic Quarter of Cairo in 1911, he began writing when he was seventeen before entering university to study as a student of philosophy in 1930. He is the author of over thirty novels. In 1988 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Rasheed El-Enany is the Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities and Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. He is also Professor Emeritus of Modern Arabic Literature, University of Exeter, where he became Director of the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He has authored several books on Naguib Mahfouz, including Naguib Mahfouz. His Life and Times. Neil Hewisonis the author of Fayoum Pottery: Ceramic Arts and Crafts in an Egyptian Oasis and The Fayoum: History and Guide. He has translated a number of other works by Yusuf Idris, Yusuf Abu Rayya, and Gamal al-Ghitani.

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