Critical Perspectives on Naguib Mahfouz

Eleven essays by Western and Middle Eastern scholars evaluate the work of Naguib Mahfouz, arguably Egypt's greatest novelist, and the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. The first such comprehensive, critical treatment in English, the book considers Mahfouz's short stories and screenplays, as well as his novels.

The contributors pay particular attention to the sociocultural aspects of Mahfouz's work—his Islamic, philosophical, and aesthetic values—along with his modernism, treatment of women, attitudes toward bureaucracy, and approach about social, economic, and political change in the major urban centers of Egypt. The book includes an extensive bibliography of the major English-language studies of Mahfouz and his work.