Mahfouz, Naguib

New York. 1992. Doubleday. 1st Doubleday Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket . 0385423233. Translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. 149 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Steven Rydberg. keywords: Literature Translated Egypt Arabic. FROM THE PUBLISHER - First published in Arabic in 1983, this brief but powerful parable is set in a mythical, timeless Middle East. It is presented as the journal of a wanderer known as Ibn Fattouma, whose boyhood tutor had extolled the virtues of travel as a way of finding the true meaning of life. He joins a caravan and sets out to explore the world, his ultimate destination the enigmatic land of Gebel. Raised in an Islamic society, Ibn Fattouma finds to his surprise that many of the countries he visits, though heathen, are in some ways superior to his own. His first stop results in marriage to a non-believer, and children. However, war with another country and a clash with a city official cause him to lose his family, and he is forced to leave. In another country he is imprisoned for twenty years, accused of crimes against the state. Civil war frees him, and he moves on again, always seeking an intangible he is never able to find, always vulnerable to the winds of social and political change. Finally, he joins a caravan bound for Gebel-a country so distant and mysterious that no one has ever been known to reach it and return to tell the tale. The Swedish Academy of Letters in awarding Naguib Mahfouz the 1988 Nobel prize for literature noted that Mahfouz ‘through works rich in nuance-now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous-has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind.'Naguib Mahfouz was born in 1911 in the crowded Cairo district of Gamaliyya, an area on which he has drawn heavily for the setting of many of his novels. He worked in various government ministries until his retirement in 1971. He began writing at the age of seventeen, and his first novel, set in ancient Egypt, was published in 1939. Since then he has written over thirty novels and more than a hundred short stories, many of which have been made into successful films. Today Naguib Mahfouz lives in the Cairo suburb of Agouza with his wife and two daughters. The Swedish Academy of Letters in awarding Naguib Mahfouz the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature noted that Mahfouz ‘through works rich in nuance--now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous--has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind.' . inventory #17053 ISBN: 0385423233.