by Najib Mahfuz

Najib Mahfuz (also spelled Naguib Mahfouz), winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born December 11, 1911, in the Jamaliyya quarter of Cairo, a part of the city that dates back to the tenth century. The quarter is situated near the area in which the events he recounts in Midaqq Alley are set. Mahfuz grew up as the son of a minor civil servant, eventually following in his father’s footsteps. He began his civil service career in 1939, also publishing his first novel that year. Mahfuz would go on to publish more than 50 novels, short stories, and plays. His sixth novel, Midaqq Alley is set during the waning days of World War II, a period of social malaise and rising political tension in Egypt. The novel, both a thriller and a carefully crafted literary meditation, is generally regarded as the rehearsal for his three-volume...