Author | Naguib Mahfouz |
---|---|
Translator | Roger Allen |
Language | Arabic/English (Translation) |
Genre | Literary fiction |
Publisher | Egyptian Publishing House and Distribution |
Publication date | 1972 |
Publication place | Cairo, Egypt |
Mirrors (Al-Maraya) is Naguib Mahfouz's 1972 novel. In it, Mahfouz creates portraits of the characters. The novel does not parallel the traditional Arabic novel, for it focuses on the characters instead of the plot [1] in an attempt to create artistic images of people who were actual contemporaries of Mahfouz. He does this by shedding the light on the secretive and known aspects of the characters' lives and closely connecting them to the plot and the plot's effect on their lives. Additionally, Mahfouz incorporates his own opinions on these characters and the political eras they lived through.[ citation needed ]
The novel includes 55 characters. The reader initially thinks that they are all fictional; however, after closely reading they realize that they are all real characters stripped off their names and appearances. [2] Most of these characters were contemporaries of Mahfouz. The 55 characters include: The professor, embodying the thinker who does not belong to any cause or anyone other than himself, the other character contradicts the first character in that it is the thinker who remains principled with time, no matter the hardships he faces. It also includes the thug who relies on violence, the nationalist who grieves over the failure of the delegation with the departure of Makram Ebeid and Al-Naqrashi from the party, the student who was martyred in Cairo's streets defending Egypt's 1923 constitution, which was discontinued by Ismaʿil Ṣidqi, the imprudent woman who cheats on her husband with his friend, the woman searching for true love despite being in her 70s with a husband and kids, the revolutionary who's a member of the Free Officers Movement, the thinker who died fighting police officers whilst getting arrested, whose legend persists after his death, the sex-obsessed woman, the tough communist who only knows honesty and rigidness, the beautiful communist plastic artist, the trader who only trades in what is forbidden, and the pious religious character. [1] The 55 characters make up an elaborate portrait, allowing the reader to form opinions on these characters, and the vast difference between each character aids in and increases the importance of forming these opinions.
Many critics believe that the importance of Mahfouz's Mirrors lies in the way it presents and critiques the "Thinkers" in Egypt, which was one of the most important social classes in Egypt during the 20th century. Also, Mahfouz's works, in general, and Mirrors, in particular, [3] led to the development of what is known as 'Adab Al-Talsin or (Gossip Literature), which is a term coined by the critic Faruq Abdelkadir to describe a literary style used by authors to settle personal matters with their enemies. [4] Hence, Mirrors is a clear example of this literary style.
The novel offered an account of the Egyptian army officers after they took over the government and showed how they experienced a shift to bourgeois values and practices. [5]
Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mahfouz is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers in Arabic literature, along with Taha Hussein, to explore themes of existentialism. He is the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 screenplays, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004. All of his novels take place in Egypt, and always mentions the lane, which equals the world. His most famous works include The Cairo Trilogy and Children of Gebelawi. Many of Mahfouz's works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films; no Arab writer exceeds Mahfouz in number of works that have been adapted for cinema and television. While Mahfouz's literature is classified as realist literature, existential themes appear in it.
The Cairo Trilogy is a trilogy of novels written by the Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, and one of the prime works of his literary career.
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma is an intermittently provocative fable written and published by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz in 1983. It was translated from Arabic into English in 1992 by Denys Johnson-Davies and published by Doubleday.
Denys Johnson-Davies was an eminent Arabic-to-English literary translator who translated, inter alia, several works by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, Sudanese author Tayeb Salih, Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish and Syrian author Zakaria Tamer.
Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many literary forms including adabs, a non-fiction form of Islamic advice literature, and various fictional literary genres.
Bensalem Himmich is a Moroccan novelist, poet and philosopher with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Paris, who teaches at the Mohammed V University, Rabat. He served as Minister of Culture from 29 July 2009 to 3 January 2012.
Reem Bassiouney is an Egyptian author, professor of sociolinguistics and Chair Department of Applied Linguistics at The American University in Cairo. In Addition, Bassiouney is the editor of the Routledge Series of Language and Identity. She is also the editor and creator of the journal Arabic Sociolinguistics Edinburgh. She has written several novels and a number of short stories and won the 2009 Sawiris Foundation Literary Prize for Young Writers for her novel Dr. Hanaa. While a substantial amount of her fiction has yet to be translated into English, her novel The Pistachio Seller was published by Syracuse University Press in 2009, and won the 2009 King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies Translation of Arabic Literature Award. Bassiouney also won Naguib Mahfouz Award from Egypt's Supreme Council for Culture in the best Egyptian novel category for her best selling novel, The Mamluk Trilogy. She was also the winner of the National Prize for Excellence in Literature of the year 2022 from the Egyptian Ministry of Culture. Bassiouney won Sheikh Zaid Literature Award for her novel Al Halwani: The Fatimid Trilogy in 2024.
The American University in Cairo Press is the leading English-language publisher in the Middle East.
Ezzat El Kamhawi is an Egyptian novelist and journalist. In December 2012, El Kamhawi was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel House of the Wolf. In June 2022 he was awarded the Samir Kassir Award for Freedom of the Press for his article "Suspicious architecture: The obsession with grand buildings and wide streets".
Latifa al-Zayyat was an Egyptian activist and writer, most famous for her novel The Open Door, which won the inaugural Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature.
Yusuf Mohamed Mohamed Abdel Wahab Al-Sibai was an Egyptian writer, soldier, and politician.
Wedding Song also known as joys of the dome is a 1981 Arabic-language novel by Naguib Ma0hfouz. In the novel a narrator tells and retells the story of a marriage, each time from different character's perspective. In Naguib Mahfouz's 1981 novel Wedding Song, the narrator tells and retells the story of a marriage from the very different perspectives of the main characters, deepening the reader's understanding of “what happened in the end we read the true story by the main narrator ." In ramadan of 2016 there was an Egyptian TV series with same name.
Velvet is an Arabic language novel by Palestinian author Huzama Habayeb published in 2016. The book won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2017. The novel depicts several Palestinian women experiencing tragic love stories under the compelling circumstances and within the ultraconservative community of Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan.
Roger Allen is an English scholar of Arabic literature. He has translated several Arabic works of literature into English, and has also written scholarly works on Arabic literature.
Ibrahim Fathi was an Egyptian writer, intellectual and critic of the 1960s. He was called the dean of leftist intellectuals; he has numerous articles and papers published in various Arabic and foreign periodicals. In addition, Fathi was briefly a part of HADETU. Fathi was honored in 2018 at the Supreme Council of Culture of Egypt for his intellectual output and role in enriching the intellectual life. In addition, Najib Mahfouz praised his writing by criticizing his works.
Karnak is a 1975 Egyptian political film based on a novel written by Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz with the same name, and directed by Ali Badrakhan and starring Soad Hosny. It includes an ensemble cast that includes Nour El-Sherif, Kamal El-Shennawi, Farid Shawqi, Taheyya Kariokka, Emad Hamdy and Shwikar. The film features Salah Zulfikar in a special appearance as Shoukry the rebellious member of parliament. The film is listed in the Top 100 films in Egyptian cinema of the 20th century.
Half of Freedom is a novel by Dr. Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al Gosaibi published in 1999. The novel was banned in Saudi Arabia for a while. It tells the story of a group of young men with different ideologies living together in an apartment in Cairo while they finish their studies. The novel discusses in detail the state of intellectual currents among Arab youth in the inflamed period of Arab history between 1948 and 1967. Half of Freedom spread greatly and its editions varied until finally it was permitted again in Saudi Arabia.
God's World is a short story collection by the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. The collection consists of fourteen stories, long and short. In his collection, Mahfouz takes the reader through Al-Ḥusayn suburbs and Al-'Abbasiyya streets before stopping on Alexandria’s beach and passing through the cemeteries before taking them to a wedding, leading out of a mosque, and finally heading to a bar. This short story collection acts as a lens, clarifying reality. He presents the lives of people from all classes, using aesthetics and concise language. The stories in the collection were published separately in Al-Ahram newspaper between 1961-1962, and they present causes and visions relevant to the 1950s and early 1960s. ‘God’s World’ was published after 25 years after the publication of Mahfouz's first short story collection ‘Hams Al-Junun' or ‘Whisper of Madness.’ During the period between these two collections, Mahfouz had already established himself as a novelist, for some of his most notable novels were published during that period, like ‘Autumn Quail’ and ‘Medaq Alley.’ It is believed that his becoming a member of Al-Ahram's editorial team drove him to pick up his interest in short stories once more.
Love in the Rain is one of Naguib Mahfouz's most popular novels. It received a lot of acclaim from critics, and readers. The novel was adapted into a film in 1975, and it was directed by Hussein Kamal, starring Mervat Amin, Ahmad Ramzi, Adel Adham, Imad Hamdi, Magda Al-Khatib, Hayat Qindil, and other notable actors.
Sugar Street, first published in 1957, is the third novel in the Cairo Trilogy by Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz. In this third novel, the main character Kamal, the youngest son of Ahmad 'Abd al-Jawad who is a young child in the first and a student in the second, is a teacher.