SOURCE: “Mahfouz: A Great Novel and a Wanting Translation,” in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1992, pp. 187–89.

In the following review, El-Enany discusses the various translation problems in Palace Walk.

Naguib Mahfouz became the first Arab writer to win international recognition when he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. This recognition did not come all of a sudden; Western readers conversant in Arabic have long been familiar with the work of Arab authors (including Mahfouz) whose appeal extends beyond their national borders to reach the timeless core of human experience. Attempts to cross the language barrier in English go back to at least the 1930s and 1940s of this century, when works of fiction by such notable Egyptian authors as Taha Husayn and Tawfiq al-Hakim were translated (namely, An Egyptian Childhood and The Maze of Justice, respectively).

The first translation of a novel by Naguib Mahfouz (Midaq...