Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Naguib Mahfouz's Egypt: Existential Themes in His Writings

Naguib Mahfouz's Egypt: Existential Themes in His Writings

Gordon, Haim

Hardcover

Series: Contributions to the Study of World Literature, Book 38

Fiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 0313268762
ISBN13: 9780313268762
Publisher: Praeger
Published: Sep 27 1990
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.78
Height: 0.68 Width: 5.66 Depth: 8.80
Language: English

In November 1988 Naguib Mahfouz became the first Arab writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. In this study of his writings only now being widely translated into English, Haim Gordon, an Israeli professor committed to intercultural dialogue, examines Mahfouz's work from an existential perspective. While Mahfouz is first and foremost a storyteller, he gives the reader an extra baksheesh. By telling stories of persons from all walks of life--civil servants, peasants, pimps, lawyers, and businessmen--Mahfouz depicts the existential problems that Egyptians face today. Using a Socratic approach, Gordon questioned Mahfouz directly in a series of personal interviews conducted over the past ten years. In these interviews Gordon probed the existential themes in the characters, plots, and issues raised in Mahfouz's stories. The result is an intimate and highly personal look at life in Egypt.

As a very involved and critical onlooker, Haim Gordon addresses the problems facing contemporary Egyptians as portrayed in Mahfouz's stories: the Egyptian's flight from freedom and confrontation, the niggar situation of Egyptian women, the debilitating effects of poverty, the blatant oppression of political rights, the degradation of true faith and the lack of spirituality. Mahfouz's stories reveal that which western scholars unintentionally, and politicians intentionally conceal--daily life in Egypt.

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