Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Farewell Naguib Mahfouz


Last night Egypt Nobel prize winner Novelist Naguib Mahfouz had passed after long life at the age of 95 year old.He passed after long struggle with illness for two months where there were some speculations that he wouldn't make it .Mahfouz was the second Egyptian to get a Noble prize in 1988 ,the first was president Mohamed Anwar El-Sadaat and it was the Noble Peace Prize.While Mahfouz got it in the field of literature, he was the first Arabic and Egyptian to get it in this field.


Naguib Mahfouz was a great Novelist who enriched the Arabic library with wonderful books and novels. He completed a line of literature started in the 1920s and 1930s concerning the concentration on life in Egyptian Allies and their custom and traditions , also he had a great eye that caught every thing change in the Egyptian society. He wrote mostly about the low and middle Working classes , the classes I guess he lived with and interacted with.


He wrote the social novels like the Cairo trilogy and also political novels like Chitchat over the Nile and Cairo 1930. Mahfouz fame came in Egypt first as screen writer , where he presented to the Egyptian Cinema the Scripts ,and I believe that it wasn't a coincidence that the late director Salah Abu Seif was always working with him ,Salah Abu Seif is called in Egypt the father of the reality cinema in Egypt.


To say the truth I saw more movies written by Mahfouz then I read book for him , his writing style in Arabic some how I don't like ,I don't know why ,in fact it is strange because I like to read for one of Mahfouz's role models and teachers as he liked to call them and that is Mahmoud Basha Taymor , Late Mahfouz once said that in "Nos El-Donia" magazine that he didn't deserve Noble prize while other deserved it like Abbas El-Akkad, Taha Hussein and Mahmoud Taymour. I write about this influence later


As I was saying Mahfouz gave to the Egyptian cinema and library masterpieces , my favourite of all times whether book or movie is "Chitchat over the Nile" , the remarkable description of the defeat of 1967 and the reasons behind it, also "The thief and the dogs" , "The Mr Gentleman", "The talk of Day and night" and many others and of course the legendary "Tramps" "El-harafish"


May God bless his soul ,I will continue writing about this great man soon





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1 comment:

  1. May God bless his soul. He was a real great writer, and he had a talent that is hard to be repeated again.

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