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GUEST: Hanna Elias, a Palestinian film maker who interviewed Mahfouz three months ago

Nobel Prize winning Egyptian novelist, Naguib Mahfouz, died on August 30th at the age of 94. Mahfouz had been hospitalized for over a month following a fall in his home in which he injured his head. Born in 1911, in the city of Cairo, Egypt, Naguib Mahfouz went on to become an icon of Middle Eastern literature. Over his prolific career, he authored more than thirty novels and many of his works were turned into films and television dramas. In 1988, Naguib Mahfouz became the first and only Arab to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. A proponent of religious tolerance, Mahfouz became a target of religious fundamentalism. In 1959, Al-Azhar, one of the most important institutions in all of Islam, banned his novel, “Children of Gebelawi,” and labeled it as blasphemous for its portrayal of religious figures. As a result of the novel and experimentations with mystical writing that angered religious conservatives, Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck outside of his home in 1994. Though Mahfouz survived the attack, he lost the ability to write by hand. With the death of Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt and the literary world has lost one of its greatest and most well known figures.

Best-known books by Naguib Mahfouz – Associated Press

“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 domineering 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 patriarch Gebelawi 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 Muhammad. 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 Egyptian 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 Sadat was assassinated by Islamic militants in 1981, depicting the impact of Sadat’s rule on Egypt.