Naguib Mahfouz Books In Order

Publication Order of The Cairo Trilogy Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Chronicles Abroad Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz was born December 11, 1911 in Cairo, Khedivate of Egypt and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers in Arabic Literature to explore themes of existentialism. He’s the only Egyptian to ever win the Nobel in Literature.

He was born in a lower middle class Muslim Egyptian family in Old Cairo. He was the seventh and youngest child, with four brothers and two sisters, all of whom were a lot older than him. As a result, he grew up as an “only child”, in a way.

His family were devout Muslims and he had a strict Islamic upbringing. He once stated that you’d never have believed an artist would emerge from such a family, it was that stern of a religious climate.

After he got his bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Cairo University in the year 1934, he joined the Egyptian civil service, where he continue working in various ministries and positions until he retired in the year 1971. He first served as a clerk at Cairo University, then, in the year 1938, in the Ministry of Islamic Endowments as a parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Islamic Endowments.

In the year 1945, he asked for a transfer to the al-Ghuri Mausoleum library, where he interviewed residents of his childhood neighborhood as part of the “Good Loans Project”.

During the 50s, he worked as a Director of Censorship in the Bureau of Arts, as Director of the Foundation for the Support of the Cinema, and lastly as a consultant to the Ministry of Culture.

He published five plays, more than 350 short stories, 34 novels, and dozens of movie scripts over his 70-plus year career as a writer.

His novel “Adrift on the Nile” was made into a film called “Chitchat on the Nile”. Many of his works have been adapted into Egyptian and foreign language films, with no Arab writer surpasses Mahfouz in number of works which have been adapted for television nd cinema.

His style of prose is characterized by the blunt expression of his ideas. His written works cover a broad range of topics, which include the taboo and controversial such as homosexuality, God, and socialism. Writing about some such topics were prohibited in Egypt.

Mahfouz stayed a bachelor until the age of 43 because he thought that, with its numerous limitations and restrictions, marriage would only hamper his literary future. He was very afraid of marriage, particularly when he saw how busy his sisters and brothers were with social events as a result of it. One went to visit people, another invited people over. Mahfouz had the impression that married life would take up all of his time. He saw himself drowning in visits and parties, without any freedom.

But in 1954, he quietly married a Coptic Orthodox woman, with whom he had two daughters. The couple originally lived on a houseboat in the Agouza section of Cairo on the west bank of the Nile, and then they moved to an apartment along the river in the same area.

He avoided public exposure, particularly inquiries into his personal life, which may have become, like he put it, “a silly topic in radio programs and journals”.

He distinctly never liked traveling. But Belgrade was one of the very few cities that he gladly went and expressed a great deal of respect for Serbia.

Mahfouz died at the age of 94 on August 30, 2006 in Agouza, Egypt.

“Palace Walk”, “Palace of Desire”, and “Sugar Street make up the “Cairo Trilogy”. Naguib’s magnificent epic trilogy about colonial Egypt shows up here in a single volume for the first time. This Nobel Prize winning writer’s masterwork is the engrossing tale about a Muslim family in Cairo during Britain’s occupation of Egypt during the early decades of the 20th century.

The novels of this trilogy trace three generations of the family of the tyrannical patriarch Al-Sayyid Ahmad Abd al-Jawad, who rules his house with a strict hand as he lives a secret life filled with self-indulgence. “Peace Walk” introduces use to Amina, his gentle and oppressed wife; Khadija and Aisha, his cloistered daughters. And his three sons: the dissolute hedonist Yasin, the idealistic and tragic Fahmy, and Kamal, the soul-searching intellectual.

Al-Sayyid Ahmad’s rebellious kids struggle to move beyond any of his domination in “Palace of Desire”, while the world all around them opens up to the currents of modernity and domestic and political turmoil brought by the 1920s.

“Sugar Street” brings his vivid tapestry of an evolving Egypt to its dramatic climax while this aging patriarch sees one grandson become a Muslim fundamentalist, one become a Communist, and one the lover of this powerful politician.

Throughout this trilogy, the family’s trials mirror those of their turbulent country during the years that span the two World Wars, while change comes to a society which had been resisting it for centuries. Filled with remarkable insight, compelling drama, and earthy humor, “The Cairo Trilogy” is the achievement of one master storyteller.

“The Thief and the Dogs” is a stand alone novel and was released in 1970. Naguib’s haunting novella bout post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid psychological portrait of one anguished man with the suspense and rapid pacing of a detective story.

After spending four years in prison, Said Mahran, the skilled young thief, emerges bent on getting revenge. He finds a world that has changed in more ways than just the one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a much more personal level, his trusted henchman and his beloved wife, the former of whom conspired to betray him to the cops, have gotten married to each other and keep his six year old daughter away from him.

However in the most bitter betrayal of all, Rauf Ilwan, his mentor, formerly a firebrand revolutionary that convinced Said that stealing from the rich in an unjust society is an act of justice, now himself is a rich man. As he is a respected newspaper editor that wants nothing at all to do with the now disgraced Said. While Said’s wild efforts to achieve his idea of justice misfire horribly, he becomes a hunted man that is driven by hatred so much that he can just recognize his final chance at redemption once it’s too late.