Dialogues of Naguib Mahfouz: Censoring the censor By Mohamed Salmawy When Naguib Mahfouz was head of censorship, he called the late filmmaker Mahmoud Zulfiqar with a piece of advice. "The censor's office is about to ban your recent film and you have done nothing about it," Mahfouz said. "Aren't you the censor?" Zulfiqar asked. "No, I am only the boss. You have to file a complaint immediately, so we may form a committee to look into your case," Mahfouz said. Zulfiqar told me this story and Mahfouz confirmed it. Mahfouz: This is how it happened. I had established a system of censorship in 1959, when I took over as chief censor. The system called for a neutral committee of intellectuals to look into complaints filed by artists whose works were turned down by the censors. The committee didn't meet except once, in Zulfiqar's case, and no film or play was ever banned during my work as chief censor. Salmawy: What happened to Zulfiqar's film? Mahfouz: The committee passed the film with a recommendation that one scene be removed, involving a suggestive dance that wasn't deemed integral to the dramatic structure of the film. Apart from this one incident, the censors never banned any scenes during my term in office. Salmawy: How about your film work at the time? Mahfouz: I decided to stop working in film as long as I was working as a censor. I had some previous contracts standing and after fulfilling those, I stopped accepting commissions until I left the censorship job. Salmawy: Your own literary writings were banned more than once, weren't they? Mahfouz: More than once. After the 1967 War, Al-Ahram refused to publish The Mirrors. Editor-in-chief Ali Hamdi Al-Gammal told me that Al-Ahram didn't object to me publishing the novel elsewhere. So I gave it to Ragaa Al-Naqqash, who was editor of Al-Iza'a Wal Telefizion (radio and television) magazine. Al-Naqqash requested the permission of the then Information Minister Mohamed Fayeq, who approved publication. The Mirrors was published with illustrations by the great Alexandrian artist Seif Wanly. Under Sadat, Al-Ahram objected to the publication of Love in the Rain. But the then Editor-in-chief Ahmed Bahaaeddin told me he would seek its publication elsewhere. The Higher Youth Council, run at the time by Ahmed Kamal Abul-Magd, had just issued a new magazine and Bahaaeddin was a consultant for that magazine. So he serialised Love in the Rain in that magazine. One thing Al-Ahram did for me that I will never forget was when it insisted on continuing the serialisation of Children of the Alley in 1959, although some ulema (Muslim scholars) had objected to it. At the time, it was Heikal's opinion that once Al-Ahram starts a series, it cannot discontinue it halfway. But when I signed Tawfik Al-Hakim's statement protesting the no-peace-no-war situation, which persisted before the 1973 War, all my works were banned from television and I couldn't write for any newspaper.
