SOURCE: A review of The Harafish, in World Literature Today, Vol. 68, No. 4, Autumn, 1994, p. 874.

In the following positive review, Allen praises the English translation of The Harafish.

The Harafish is an English translation of Malhamat al-Harāfish (literally “The Epic of the Harāfish”), which was originally published in Egypt in 1977. In 1975–76 I was on sabbatical in Egypt and had been in contact with Naguib Mahfouz several times concerning my translation of his earlier work, al-Marāyā (1972), which was eventually published in English in 1977 as Mirrors. I can vividly recall one telephone conversation in which he told me that he had just finished a work about the “harafish” and was very happy with it. Subsequent comments by Mahfouz indeed make it clear that this is his personal favorite among all his works; it has certainly been at the top of his translation desiderata following his receipt of the...