Essays of the Sadat Era: The Non-Fiction of Naguib Mahfouz: Volume II

by Naguib Mahfouz, Russell Harris (Translator), Aran Byrne (Translator)

When Naguib Mahfouz quit his job as a civil servant in 1971, a Nobel Prize in literature was still off on the horizon, as was his global recognition as the central figure of Arab literature. He was just beginning his post on the editorial staff of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram , and elsewhere in Cairo, Anwar Sadat was just beginning his hugely transformative Egyptian presidency, which would span eleven years and come to be known as the Sadat era. This book offers English-language readers the first glimpse of the Sadat era through Mahfouz’s eyes, a collection of pieces that captures one of Egypt’s most important decades in the prose of one of the Middle East’s most important writers. 
            This volume stitches together a fascinating and vivid account of the dramatic events of Sadat’s era, from his break with the Soviet Union to the Yom Kippur War with Israel and eventual peace accord and up to his assassination by Islamic extremists in 1981. Through this tumultuous history, Mahfouz takes on a diverse array of political topics—including socioeconomic stratification, democracy and dictatorship, and Islam and extremism—which are still of crucial relevance to Egypt today. Clear-eyed and direct, the works illuminate Mahfouz’s personal and political convictions that were more often hidden in his novels, enriching his better-known corpus with social, political, and ideological context.
            These writings are a rare treasure, a story of a time of tremendous social and political change in the Middle East told by one if its most iconic authors. 

198 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2016

About the author

Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic author profile: نجيب محفوظ) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.

Reviews

[GONZA · Rating 3 out of 5]

Letters and essays that belong to the author's youth, and personally I prefer the ironic style of his novels, partly because - unfortunately - my ignorance, especially regarding life in Egypt , has prevented me from appreciating many things here discussed

Epistole e saggi che appartengono alla giovane etá dell'autore e personalmente mi piace piú lo stile ironico dei suoi romanzi, anche perché purtroppo la mia ingoranza, soprattutto per quanto riguarda la vita in Egitto durante gli anni '70, mi ha impedito di apprezzare parecchie cose qui discusse.

I received from the publisher an advanced digital review copy in exchange for a honest review.