By Mohamed Salmawy Naguib Mahfouz has done a great deal for the Arabic novel, in terms of both form and language. The Arabic novel before Naguib Mahfouz was one thing, after him another thing altogether. He opened up new vistas and horizons for the novel across the Arab world by experimenting with so many different forms. What he did was produce a prototype, forging what critics like Roger Allen call "the Arabic novel". It is because of Mahfouz that it is now possible to speak of such a thing, the Arabic novel, just as one can speak of the "the Russian novel" and "the French novel". In terms of language he experimented a great deal, formulating a language that replicated the immediacy and the vivacity of modern Arabic colloquial while at the same time maintaining the literary values of classical Arabic. If you look at the literature written before Mahfouz, by people like Al-Manfaluti or Al-Aqqad ,or even Taha Husayn, you can easily see how much more modern, more immediate and up to date is Mahfouz's language. Mahfouz actually makes these other writers sound archaic. He wrote historical novels during his Pharaonic period then delved into realism, most notably in The Cairo Trilogy. He experimented with new forms in Awlad Haratina (The Children of Gebelawi), Al-Tariq (The Search), Miramar and Al-Liss wal-Kilab (The Thief and the Dogs). Like all great artists he has passed through a number of periods, and made himself at home in an astonishing number of genres. He even delved into the absurd with his one-act plays which these days are sadly neglected. He wrote five of the finest one-act plays in the Egyptian theatre and they were almost all absurdist in form; this in addition to 40- something novels and 350 short stories. The novels represent almost all of the national events that shaped Egypt's 20th century history. He wrote about the struggle for independence from the British, from the beginning of the 20th century through the 1919 Revolution to the period between the two World Wars and the 1952 Revolution. He continued to write in the aftermath of the defeat of 1967, through the 1973 War and the ensuing peace treaty, up to the present. He often articulated the realities of modern day Egypt far more forcefully than many younger writers, and in a work such as Al-Hubb Fawq Hadabat Al-Haram (Love on the Pyramids Plateau), talked directly about the problems facing the young given current economic conditions. He was very vocal, more so than many writers who have built their reputations on being outspoken. Mahfouz produced great works before and after the Nobel Prize: what the award did was to introduce the West to his greatness. There are those who have won the Nobel Prize only to sink into oblivion; I think here of people like Claude Simon. Now it is virtually impossible to find a title by Simon in a French bookshop, while every time I visit France I find one or two newly-translated Mahfouz titles, and this despite the fact that it has been 18 years since he won the Nobel. I still remember Mahfouz's first comment when he heard he had won the prize. "My masters deserved it more than me", he said, referring to Al-Aqqad, Al-Mazni, Taha Husayn and Tawfiq Al-Hakim. He was a man who lived all his life on the street. He has done a great deal of walking, especially in Old Cairo. He never owned a car though each one of his children have one. He was never impatient with people who stopped him to shake his hand or wanted to take their photograph with him. He patiently answered their questions about one novel or another, or about something in a film based on one of his novels for which he had not the slightest responsibility. Famously, he spent time in cafés where he would meet with young writers who would often give him their work to see. I remember an occasion in Al-Ahram, in 1970, when I first knew him and was still a young writer. I had a collection of short stories about to be published. I did not want to offer him the book when it came out so I gave him the manuscript, thinking that I was treating him differently from other young writers who would present him with a published copy. When I gave him the manuscript he thought it a good opportunity to read the stories and perhaps make some corrections that I might want to incorporate in the final copy though I had not even hoped for such a thing. A week later he had returned the manuscript with a note saying, "I read your manuscript and I enjoyed it very much and had a few remarks to make. I made them in pencil so that if you don't like them you can just erase them." Who would erase anything Mahfouz has written? They were all important remarks and I changed many things along the lines he advised. Mahfouz was a very special person. Modest and endearing, he cared about people. There are many who will tell you that they had a special relationship with Mahfouz but the truth is everyone who knew Mahfouz had a special relationship with him. All his relationships were special. He was a very giving person, the most human person I have met in my life. I have always thought that if there was a Nobel Prize for humanity, then Mahfouz would be the first to earn it.
