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Although it happened back in August, it came as a terrible shock to me when I learned that my favorite author, Noble Laureate Naguib Mahfouz, was dead.

Mahfouz was nearly 100 years old, and outlived the German, British, and Extremist occupations of his native Egypt. He wrote openly, and honestly about Egyptian life in a voice which bestowed honor, love, and vitality to his people. Many of his contemporaries were killed viciously by tyrants who would control Cairo, and root out the dissent at its source, Mahfouz was never killed. Not because he was a collaborator in any way, but because he simply wrote the truth with such mastery and love that there was nothing to accuse him of. And yet his works inspired revolution and gave voice, life, and vibrance to a people who were otherwise all but forgotten.

Due to his outspoken support for President Anwar Sadat’s Camp David peace treaty with Israel, his books were banned in many Arab countries. This changed after he won the Nobel prize.

Egyptian writer Ahdaf Souief, who knew Mahfouz well, said “He was our greatest living novelist for a very long time. Mahfouz was an innovator in the use of the Arabic language. He also embodied the whole development of the Arabic novel, starting with historical novels in the late 1940s through realism, through experimentalism and so on. He single-handedly went through the whole development of the Arabic novel and made innovation possible for generations of writers after him.”

It is impossible to single out the significant works of Naguib Mahfouz, he wrote in an ever expanding and controversial style depicting ordinary Egyptians, history, and pre history. He wrote of love, passion, desire, faith, truth, and longing. Mahfouz’ love of the written word left a legacy of more than thirty novels and countless essays and short stories including The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. Perhaps the best entry into the Arabic novel which Mahfouz all but single handedly created as an art form, this trilogy presents the turn of the century Egyptian world in its most ordinary context. Challenging and difficult at first, and then intoxicating and enduring. A true portrait of at least three generations of the Abd al-Jawad family, and the day to day life in 20th century Egypt. Children of Gebelawi. First serialized in Egyptian newspapers, this book caused an uproar because of its “mystic” style and was banned by Egyptian religious authorities on the grounds it violated Islamic rules by including characters who clearly represented God and the prophets. Regardless, it was published in Lebanon and later translated into English, Saharafish, Miramar, Adrift on the Nile, The story of a man who lost his way, and although he sought modernity, culture and ideas, he found himself m’hashish, laying on a pillow of a houseboat which drifted nowhere. The Day the Leader Was Killed, The Beginning and the End, Akhenaten, and so many others. I have read everything by Naguib Mahfouz I have ever been able to get my hands on. He has delighted me, and moved me, given me the gift of empathy, compassion, understanding, and love.

Mahfouz was accorded a state funeral with full military honors on Aug 31, 2006 in Cairo. He was buried in the Al Rashdan Mosque in Nasr City on the outskirts of Cairo.

MAHFOUZ FACTS
1911: Born in Cairo
1934: Graduated in philosophy from Cairo University
1959: Al-Azhar, one of the most important Islamic institutions in the world, bans novel because it includes characters representing God and the prophets
1988: First and only Arab to win Nobel Prize for literature
1994: Mahfouz stabbed in the neck by Islamist militant angered by his work.

A hero passes. The great Egyptian is dead. Long live Naguib Mahfouz.