“Naguib Mahfouz, an Egyptian novelist who was the first Arabic writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature and who was often considered the greatest writer in the Arab world… lived his entire life in Cairo, which provided the inspiration and backdrop for almost all of his writing… He set most of his works in the ancient Islamic quarter of Cairo, with its mosques and serpentine alleys teeming with shopkeepers, metalsmiths, government workers, peasants, prostitutes and thieves. His vibrant novels portraying life at every level of society were often likened to those of such other writers of urban social realism as Charles Dickens, Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola.”

— Naguib Mahfouz

Matt Schudel " Leading Arab Novelist Gave Streets a Voice http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/30/AR2006083000475.html" in: Washington Post, August 31, 2006

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Naguib Mahfouz 7

Egyptian writer 1911–2006

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Naguib Mahfouz 7

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