Naguib Mahfouz
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Naguib Mahfouz
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1988
Born: 11 December 1911, Cairo, Egypt
Died: 30 August 2006, Cairo, Egypt
Residence at the time of the award: Egypt
Prize motivation: "who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind."
Language: Arabic
Prize share: 1/1
Work
Naguib Mahfouz' authorship deals with some of life's fundamental questions, including the passage of time, society and norms, knowledge and faith, reason and love. He often uses his hometown of Cairo as the backdrop for his stories and some of his early works are set in ancient Egypt. Later, the modern age and life in a changing society became the focus of his writing, although some of his later works have a more mystical or metaphysical character. Naguib Mahfouz' body of work comprises more than 30 novels and 350 short stories. Many of his stories have been adapted for film.
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