CAIRO: Sotheby's London is auctioning a collection of manuscripts by Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab writer to have received a Nobel Prize for Literature. The archive will go up for auction on December 15, and will sell for an estimated £50,000 – £70,000. There is little information available about the seller, however Sotheby's announced that the collection comes from a private, North American donor. The archive spans seven decades of Mahfouz's career, including works from the 1930s until his death in 2006, and includes a draft of an unpublished novel entitled Story of the Sudan. “It is an immense honor to be offering what is to the best of our knowledge, the first manuscript material by Naguib Mahfouz to appear at public auction ― much of it previously unpublished,” said Dr Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby's Senior Manuscripts Specialist. “Throughout his life, Mahfouz constantly revisited his great subject, the city of Cairo and what is perhaps most fascinating about these manuscripts, which include material from the very beginning and the end of his career, is how we can observe the style of this great writer continually evolving,” she continued. The sale of the documents has created some buzz in Cairo, amid rumors that the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and the Alexandria Library may bid on the collections. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/MJ6WJ Tags: featured, Manuscripts, Naguib Mahfouz, sotheby's Section: Culture, Egypt, Written Word
