The place of Naguib Mahfouz in contemporary Middle Eastern history and culture is gargantuan; there is truly no way to assess it rationally, so huge is it. There has not been a single figure in the past century who has had the massive impact on the world of Arabic letters as Mahfouz has. His many novels and short story collections represent a veritable encyclopedia of modern Arabic literature.

Indeed, the novels of Mahfouz have been ubiquitous markers of my own knowledge and love of the Middle Eastern culture and a pathway to understanding the past of our Middle Eastern parents and grandparents. Naguib Mahfouz skillfully wove a web of Arab life that is the equal of Dickens' portrayals of 19th century England and John Steinbeck's representations of 20th century America. His novels are indispensable signposts to a world that we desperately need to both understand and to reclaim as our own.

The death of Mahfouz marks the end of an era, the slow death of the values of the Arab liberalism that were so much a part of each of his books. His writings comprise a library of a road not taken and the loss of his presence and his living voice will most certainly be of great consequence for all of us who sat at his feet as students and disciples. The unforgettable characters he created in his many works of fiction and his keen sense of social mores, politics and history will forever remain indelibly imprinted on our consciousness as readers and students.

Those classic works of literature, from his earliest novels of ancient Egypt which begin a trajectory that would move on to realism and more experimental efforts subsumed the history of the Middle East throughout its many metamorphoses. His central and defining work The Cairo Trilogy made up of three volumes, tells of the lives of some average Egyptians living through some very tumultuous times. His realistic novels provided for his many readers an accurate and searching look at the world of Arabs who were undergoing political, social and cultural changes that Mahfouz as a cultural Modernist and a proud humanist detailed with great integrity as well as a profoundly empathetic sensibility.

While many post-mortem assessments of Mahfouz will focus on his troubles with the Islamists and with his support of the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, Mahfouz's true genius lies in his literary works which encompass vast landscapes of Arab life: The sad tales of proletarian and Middle Class Egyptian life in The Beginning and the End and Midaq Alley led to his more experimental fiction in the vein of post-Modernism in classic works such as The Harafish, Arabian Days and Nights and the almost hallucinatory fragmentary work known in English as Fountain and Tomb.

It was this brilliant literary sensibility that gave Mahfouz the power as a pillar of Modern Arabic civilization: His was an art that spoke to the academic as well as the average Joe. His plots were always juicy yet his use of language and narrative was never less than cutting edge.

He will be remembered as a man who stood for the most noble principles of his ancient and venerable culture. All those who partook of his work well understand the genius of the Arabic civilization and the role that Naguib Mahfouz played in its efflorescence as well as its wide dissemination though his role as a Nobel laureate and ambassador of letters.


David Shasha is the director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in Brooklyn, New York. The Center publishes the weekly e-mail newsletter Sephardic Heritage Update as well as promoting lectures and cultural events relevant to Sephardic culture.