By Mohamed Salmawy In late 2005, I came back from America with something unusual. I brought back a book that was 15x15 inches and priced at $5,000. The book was Arabian Nights and Days, a novel by Naguib Mahfouz first published in Arabic in 1982. The new edition was produced by the New York-based Limited Editions Club, a publisher specialised in livres d'artiste, or artist books. The books are usually written by top writers, such as Kavafy, Rilke and Mallarme. They are also illustrated with original paintings by leading artists. Copies are printed on handmade paper and sewn individually. When Limited Editions Club wanted to publish a Naguib Mahfouz novel they asked the author to name a suitable book. I conveyed that request to Mahfouz and he gave the company a choice between The Harafish and Arabian Nights and Days. They chose the latter. The publishers then asked Mahfouz to name a top Egyptian artist to do the paintings and he selected Nazli Madkour. They asked me to write the foreword and I said I couldn't write a foreword for someone like Mahfouz. So I wrote an epilogue that went at the end of the book. The book was launched at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Every book was placed in a box made of rough silk and lined with velvet. The original paintings of Madkour were displayed in that occasion. Each copy was numbered and had the name and signature of both the author and the painter. Back in Cairo, I placed the book in front of Mahfouz. "Here is your new book," I said. "That's something," he replied, laughing at the impressive product. "How much does this cost?" "Five thousand dollars, which would be 30,000 Egyptian pounds or so," I said. "God help us," he said. "He did. The book has almost sold out. How much did you sell your first book for?" I asked. "One piastre," he said, referring to The Mockery of Fate ( Abath Al-Aqdar ). "My payment was 500 copies the publisher gave me. I didn't know what to do with the books, so I hired a horse-drawn carriage and dropped them at the first bookshop I found. The owner took pity on me and took the books, but didn't pay for them. He promised to pay me a fraction of a piastre for each copy sold. I kept going back to check on the books and nothing was sold. One day I went to the bookshop and couldn't find a single book. I thought they were all sold out, but the owner said he had to move the lot to the storehouse as there were no buyers." "From one piastre to $5,000. Think of that," I said. "Well, the piastre was a good start. The Mockery of Fate sold out when I published Khan Al-Khalili and people began to recognise my name," Mahfouz said.
