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The Book:
First published in
1947 in Arabic, Midaq Alley is about the Egyptian residents of a
hustling, teeming back alley in Cairo in the 1940's. The attempts
of several residents to escape the alley and move up in status end with
dreams broken and unfulfilled, but the book captures a great slice of life
in the Cairo of the first half of this century.
The Movie:
In 1994, Midaq
Alley was adapted to screen by Mexican filmmaker Jorge Fons and won
a Special Mention at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival. Transferred
from 1940s Cairo to contemporary Mexico City, the action revolves around
the parallel and often intertwined lives of a bar owner, a spinster, and
the local beauty. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles.
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About
Naguib Mahfouz, 1911-,
Egyptian novelist
and short-story writer. One of Egypt's major contemporary writers, he
was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize for literature. He depicts urban
life in such novels as Midaq Alley (1947), Palace of Desire
(1957), The Search (1964), Miramar (1967), and the allegorical
Children
of Gebelawi (1969), which was banned in Egypt. Among his volumes of
short stories is God's World (tr. 1973). In 1994 he was stabbed
in an assassination attempt by an Islamic radical.
from Encyclopedia.com
Read more about
Naguib Mahfouz:
Naguib
Mahfouz
MAHFOUZ,
the Nobel lauriate Egypt, Essay, 8/9/97
Press
Release: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1988
October
13, 1988, Naguib Mahfouz
Books
by Naguib Mahfouz
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MIDAQ
ALLEY by Naguib Mahfouz