>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
[ Silence ]
>> Good morning, ladies and gentleman,
and welcome to the Library of Congress.
I'm Mary Jane Deeb, Chief of the African Middle-East Division.
The division that is organizing today's program.
My division is made up of three sections,
including the [inaudible] section, which is responsible
for this conference, and is headed by Dr. Christopher Murphy.
We also have the Hebraic section,
headed by Dr. Peggy Perstein, and the African Section.
Together, the three sections are responsible for 78 countries
in the Middle East, North, and sub-Saharan Africa,
Central Asia and the caucuses.
The south [inaudible] division recommend the purchases
of publications as its patrons and researchers searching
for these publications are custodians of publications
in the vernacular, help preserve those materials,
and make every effort to make the division's collections known,
through conferences such as this one,
where we highlight authors and display their books.
And I hope you have all gone to the next room
and seen the books on Naguib Nahfuz.
We also hold single-author programs, videotape interviews with poets
and writers, and hold major exhibits.
In fact, we had two exhibits in the past year alone.
Today, we are celebrating Naguib Nahfuz,
the 1988 Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature.
Dr. Fawzi Tadros, whom you will hear very soon,
was a major instigator behind this program.
He had also organized an earlier conference in 2010 on Tahari Singh,
one of the giants of modern Arabic literature.
On both occasions, the cultural and educational office
of the Egyptian Embassy collaborated with the library
and provided support for the speakers who came from Egypt.
We are very grateful to the Ambassador of Egypt,
Mohammed Tawfik, and to Dr. Henry Barai [assumed spelling],
for their assistance with today's program.
And now, it is my great pleasure and honor to introduce
to you the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington,
who despite his very busy schedule, has agreed to be with us today.
Dr. Billington?
>> James Billington: Thank you [applause].
Thank you very much Dr. Deeb, and welcome to you all, Your Excellency,
Ambassador Tawfik, scholarly presenters, ladies and gentleman.
It really does give me great pleasure to welcome you today
to the symposium focusing on the life and works
of the Nobel Laureate, Naguib Nahfuz.
I also wish to thank Ambassador Tawfik
and then Dr. Helmi Elbuk Taya [assumed spelling],
Raya [assumed spelling], sorry, they're on the Education
and Cultural Office of the Embassy, who have worked
to make this event happen,
as Dr. Deeb has already said, but we're very grateful.
This symposium is part of the continuing effort by the Library
of Congress' African and Middle Eastern Divisions
to focus the attention of scholars and the public
on significant individuals from the Middle East,
especially those affecting the lives and thought
of peoples far beyond the region itself.
And this is being filmed and recorded, and we will hope
to give it further distribution.
The division itself has, during the past half decade,
organized international symposium programs
on Ali Sharir [assumed spelling], Nava'i,
the 15th Century Central Asian author, Jalal al-Din Rumi,
the 13th Century Persian poet, Amin Reyhani, the Arab American author,
businessman and advisor to the U.S. and Saudi leaders, Taha Hussein,
the Egyptian scholar and author, Jerji Zidan, turn to the 19th,
20th Century Lebanese Egyptian journalist, performist, and author,
and [foreign name spoken],
the [inaudible] Russian Author/Playwright,
and cultural diplomat.
Furthermore, the division has organized topical conferences
on education and cultural developments in post-2003 Iraq.
The [inaudible] community in Turkmen culture and literature.
And I might add that for our first-ever National Advisory Group
here at the Library, the Library of Congress
of course being our oldest federal cultural institution,
we had a marvelous presentation on the history and culture
of ancient Nubia, by one of the members of our Madison Council,
who's also an Egyptologist.
Now, in the room, LJ113, immediately adjoining this room,
there is a display of books, fusion works by Mahfouz
and scholarly examinations of his literature,
as well as a number of translations.
It's a remarkable range that he's given us,
and all of these volumes come from the collections of the Library
of Congress, and are visible testimony
to the Library's continuing determination and efforts
to document the culture of the world.
This is also representative of the world digital library
where our collaboration with Egypt has been particularly rewarding.
Naguib Mahfouz is the author of 34 works, received the Nobel Prize
for Literature, as I'm sure you all know, in 1988.
The number of his works have been used as the basis for films,
and the film, "A Beginning and a End," based on a short novel
by Mahfouz, is the foundational work for a movie not only
in Arabic, but also in Italian.
The vast majority of Mahfouz's work really portrays in mid- and 19th,
20th Century, the people of Cairo, their loves and hates,
their successes and failures, their hopes and fears, their interactions
with another within and without the family, one another,
within and without the family, and with the institutions of society,
both religious and governmental.
By his portrayal of Cairo and its residents, Mahfouz opens a door
to the examination of more universal human concerns, the hopes of parents
for their children, intimacy and human relationships,
as well as religion and death, the great themes of all literature,
and it is particularly rich field that we hope more will discover
and we're extraordinarily grateful
to the distinguished scholars who've come here to celebrate this
and enabled us to record it for future and additional enjoyment.
There will also be a film during, during lunch?
Is that it?
So you have continuous action today.
Now, let me welcome to this scholarly event another scholar,
a person who honors us by his presence here,
Ambassador Mohammed Tawfik came from the U.S.,
in September of this past year, previously he was Ambassador
to Lebanon and to Australia.
He is the author himself of seven books,
and is greatly interested in culture events.
He's been a very welcomed presence in this city, and a living reminder
of the great historic and continuing cultural richness of Egypt.
So, ladies and gentleman, please welcome Ambassador Tawfik,
and with our great thanks [applause].
>> Ambassador Tawfik: Thank you very much Dr. Billington.
Dr. Mary Jane Deeb, all those at the Library of Congress who have worked
so hard to make this occasion possible,
and all of you here, for being here today.
In 1988, when Naguib Mahfouz received his Nobel Prize,
I was starting off my diplomatic career at the Egyptian Embassy
in Washington, and at the time, everybody in Egypt was very happy.
And you know what we do usually in these occasions, we throw a party.
And so the Egyptian government decided
to have this great celebration
to celebrate Naguib Mahfouz's Nobel Prize.
And this was done in a hurry, so they just--
somebody just called the Ambassador,
who at the time was Ambassador Abdul al-Farid, over the phone,
and asked them, "Please, we're going to have this great celebration,
invite a few of the most prominent writers in the United States."
And the Ambassador turned to this young diplomat,
who had literary aspirations, and he said, "Please invite some
of the best writers in the United States to come to Egypt
to celebrate the Nobel Prize for Naguib Mahfouz."
And I found it a very good opportunity to get in touch
with these great iconic figures.
I have read their works, I had been fascinated by them,
and this was a perfect opportunity.
And I basically undertook the very difficult job of hunting them down,
getting their phone numbers, and actually talking with them.
It was a bit of a sobering experience, because I discovered
that most of these writers, of course had not read any
of Naguib Mahfouz's work, but in fact, I'd never heard of him.
And at the time, the...Mahfouz had a publisher, a local publisher
in Washington, that was situated close to DuPont Circle.
I think it was called the Three Continents Press.
Which I used to visit very often at the time.
But I knew very well that the distribution was very limited,
and for me it was a little bit of a disappointment because we grew
up in Egypt with Naguib Mahfouz's books,
being dealt with in people's homes as a commonplace object.
They were very, they had a very distinctive look, they were always--
the covers were always done by the same artist,
he had his publisher he'd been working with,
publishing with the same publisher for decades,
and we always knew what a Naguib Mahfouz book looked like.
We had actually some of his characters,
like Sisayid [assumed spelling], for example, had crept into the culture,
into the language, to become figures of historic significance.
Figures, you know, like these mythic heroes, that peopled used to mention
and talk about all the time
without necessarily knowing their link to Naguib Mahfouz.
But at that point, it became important for people to,
in the United States and elsewhere in the world,
to read Naguib Mahfouz's work, at least in my mind.
And the reason for that is that literature transforms people
from other countries and other cultures, from stereotypes
into actually living human beings.
It, it shows the tremendous richness in terms of diversity, in culture,
that we have around the world.
And it shows that diversity as something
to be rejoiced rather than feared.
And so Naguib Mahfouz became, in my mind,
one of the most important exports that Egypt had
to work hard to show to the world.
For us, in Egypt, of course, we have always been fascinated
by the concept of history, of recording this--
every day details of things that we consider important.
Recording them in a way that will not be lost.
That comes partly from our distrust for official historians.
We have had 5,000 years of seeing history distorted time and again
in favor of whoever was in power.
And we have come to look at art as a way of preserving history,
the real, the real history.
And basically catching, capturing the moment that we live.
It was important in itself for Naguib Mahfouz to be read
around the world, but there are three different very important
things about Mahfouz for me, from my perspective,
that I'd like to share with you.
First of all, as a writer he was capable
of constantly reinventing himself.
In his 70s, he was still avant garde in his writing.
His style continued to evolve.
And he was continuously rebelling against his own previous works.
And I think that was one of the great reasons why he was
such a successful writer,
such an iconic figure in Egyptian literature.
But another very important reason is that from very early on,
he felt he had the duty and the obligation to pass on his technique,
his craft, as a writer, to other younger writers.
And I had the occasion of having a talk last week with Sabry Hafez,
one of the prominent Egyptian critics, who was here in Washington
for another symposium on Sanaa Ibrahim.
And he was telling me about the very early days when he went
to the Opera Cafe with Naguib Mahfouz,
and he used to discuss a book every week.
And Naguib Mahfouz would never tolerate one
of his young colleagues coming over and pretending to discuss a book
if they'd only read it halfway through.
And he was, he dealt with this issue of the craft of writing,
in a way that was almost religious in terms of his dedication.
The third thing which is very notable about Naguib Mahfouz is
that his perspective on life was basically a very profoundly
human perspective.
His vision was one of tolerance.
Rather than sanctimony.
He tried to understand rather than condemn.
And that's why it's very hard to hate any of his characters,
even though his works are full of villains,
it is very difficult to actually hate them.
And this view, this uh...this humanistic approach, I think,
in a way explains why he was the target
of an assassination attempt by extremists.
And though he survived, I think his health
since that point was very severely damaged.
So today, 25 years after that moment when I was fervently calling some
of the major U.S. writers about the celebration for Naguib Mahfouz,
it is from a personal perspective something
that I appreciate very much, that the Library
of Congress is organizing this celebration of Mahfouz,
and that so many people have read his work,
and that so many people have come to appreciate him.
I think it's a tremendous sign of success and progress,
and I'd like to thank you all again for being here today.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you Mr. Ambassador, and thank you Dr. Billington.
I think this is a wonderful way of starting the conference,
and setting it in the right perspective.
And now we start immediately with the first panel.
So may I call to the stage the three panelists?
Dr. Roger Allen, Dr. Marius Deeb, Dr. Fawzy Tadros [assumed spelling],
and each speaker will be speaking for about 20 minutes.
And after which the floor will be open for questions
and answers...if you could sit this way,
Roger will be the first speaker, and Marius you'll be the second,
and Fawzy will be the third.
So if you want to do it that way.
Okay? The speakers will be speaking in the order
in which they appear in the program.
So I will introduce each speaker in turn.
The first will be Professor Roger Allen, who recently retired
from his position at the Sascha Jane Patterson Harvie Professor
of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics in the School of Arts
and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.
And also may I say a friend whom we've known for almost 40 years.
He has served as Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature
in the Department of Mid-East and Languages and Civilizations
for 43 years at the University of Pennsylvania.
He chaired the department between 2005 and 2011.
Professor Allen also served as the President
of the Middle East Studies Association in 2009, 2010.
He obtained his Doctorate degree in Modern Arabic Literature
from Oxford University in 1968.
Professor Allen translated the collection of short stories
by Naguib Mafouz, God's World, published in 73
in conjunction with Akef Abadir.
This collection is specifically mentioned in the published citation
of the Nobel Literature Prize Committee in 1988.
He has also translated into English Mafouz's Autumn Quail, Mirrors,
Karnak Cafe, Khan El-Khalili, and One Hour Left.
His research interests have focused on a number of issues
within the brotherhood of Arabic literature.
There's a very, very long CD, but for the sake of time,
this is just a brief outline of his illustrious career.
Professor Allen [Applause].
>> Professor Allen: Thank you Dr. Deeb, and let me just say that it is
with honor to be asked to talk at this particular session.
I'd like to thank the Ambassador for his words.
And it's a particular honor to talk about Naguib Mahfouz,
somebody who I first met in 1967 and who I regularly talked
to almost until his passing.
My last talk with him was in 2005.
I was one of the privileged members, for those of you
who knew his routine, I was a member of the Tuesday Group,
which used to meet in the last days on the [foreign word] Boat,
so-called, and [foreign word], or house boat, on the Nile.
Along with Ganal Katani [assumed spelling],
Yusef Lahaid [assumed spelling] and several other people,
[foreign word spoken], and it was my privilege to participate
in some of their discussions.
The Ambassadors just talked about history,
and my title includes the word retrospect,
which implies that I'm going to talk about history.
I'd like to start by, however, saying that Oscar Wilde in one
of his more serious moments said the one thing we owe
to history is to rewrite it.
Part of the problem, it seems to me, in talking about Naguib Mahfouz
in retrospect is that his fame was such that particularly
after the appearance of the trilogy in the 1950s,
people were writing Naguib Mahfouz
into history while he was still alive.
They were identifying phases in his career and things like that.
But as we look back now at his complete, over his complete life,
it seems to me that it's probably more fruitful to talk
about his career in different ways.
And that's one thing I'm going to try to do.
That's not to say, of course, that as the Ambassador again has noticed,
he didn't go through a variety of transformations in his style.
As the translator, as Mary Jane Deeb has just said of Autumn Quail,
[foreign language spoken] of 1962, then [foreign language spoken]
from 1972 or al-Karnak from 1971, and if you look carefully
at al-Karnak, probably his most controversial work,
you notice it's the only novel in which he specifically puts the dates
at which he completed it, which is rather interesting,
since it didn't come out until 1974, and I might talk about that later.
Then all the way back to Khan El-Khalili,
this was an enormous shock for me as a translator, to go back
and see what incredible transformations had occurred
in his writing technique between Khan El-Khalili,
which is his first novel set in the modern period, 1945,
and some of the later ones.
And [foreign language spoken] which is translated as The Final Hour,
of 1982, so I had to go back and forth in his career,
and became abundantly aware
of exactly what the Ambassador has just talked about.
His absolute commitment to development and change
as he increasingly read works of world literature,
and he read them assiduously.
So let me suggest some categories of Naguib Mahfouz,
a student philosopher, it seems to me particularly important,
particularly when you look at some of his early works.
As everybody in Egypt who was concerned
with Cinema knew a highly organized bureaucrat.
Sometimes making himself quite unpopular with certain writers
when it came to film scripts.
A profound humanist.
A skeptical, but actually deeply devout, believer.
An aficionado of cafes throughout his life.
And I used to go to La Riche Cafe in the good old days,
before he moved away from there.
And that feature which appears in many of his works,
one of the great jokesters of Egypt, and as you know, Egypt specializes--
Egyptians specialize in jokes.
There are even categories of jokes.
Nobody hears from the side, but anyway...but the tremendous exponent
of the one-liner joke, the comment.
That's Naguib Mahfouz.
Was Naguib Mahfouz concerned about and interested
in the political life of his country?
Well, I don't think it takes you very long
to read [foreign language spoken], al-Karnak,
and [foreign language spoken], to realize that the answer
to that question is, "Of course he was."
I told once Louis Awad, the great Egyptian critic,
if I was translating al-Maraya [assumed spelling] into English,
and he was not very happy with me.
Because Louis Awad seemed to think that he had identified himself
as one of the characters in that particular set
of 54 allegedly anonymous names, and it's been quite a game ever
since that work came out, to try to identify exactly who it is
that Naguib Mahfouz is actually describing.
In some cases it's easier than others.
So, in talking about Naguib Mahfouz, I want to begin
by sketching what is perhaps the current version of Mahfouz's place
in the development of the modern Arabic novel.
In such an attempt, there is this balance
between what is imported and what is indigenous.
And the overwhelming majority of emphasis in most studies
of the Arabic novel has been devoted to the imported.
It seems to me that that kind of approach may have a certain validity
at certain phases in development of the novel, but the closer we get
to the present day, the less validity it has
as a universal kind of combination.
Within the tradition of writing about the Arabic novel
and its development, the novel Zaynab
by Muhammad Husayn Haykal gets given,
it seems to me, far too much emphasis.
It certainly is an important weigh-station in the development
of the Arabic novel, with any attempt to ascribe a kind
of first-ness to it seems to me to fly in the face of a whole series
of other kinds of writing, kinds of novels, which do different things,
whether we talk about the honoree of the last conference here
that I attended, [foreign language spoken], or whether you talk
about the person I wrote my doctoral dissertation on,
who was therefore absolutely crucially important
to the entire world, namely Mohammed al-Muwaylihi,
and his Hadith `Isa ibn Hisham which seems to me
to give a much more accurate portrait of Egyptian society
than Haykal's Zaynab does.
But that's a whole other argument.
We then have the 1930s, in which basically all the major Egyptian
intellectuals seemed to decide that you have to write a novel
because it's the thing to do.
Some of them much better than others, [foreign language spoken],
and my particular favorite, and I think his best novel,
[foreign language spoken], al-Ahad [assumed spelling],
who writes a rather psychologically twisted novel called Sarah [assumed
spelling], Taha Hussein of course, Mahood Taymor [assumed spelling],
Tahar Lassein [assumed spelling] and at the end of that decade,
of course, a very young man named Naguib Mahfouz, reflects on his love
of ancient Egypt inculcated into his mind by his mother,
who he used regularly to take on trips to the Egyptian museum
and the perimitz, he begins his writing career after reading a book
about how to write novels by one John Drinkwater.
Then, we have the novels of the 1940s, culminating in a trilogy.
The continuingly interesting, and problematic,
I will add Heredna [assumed spelling], George,
Gebelawi in the English, or Children of the Alley,
the novels of the 60s culminating in Miramar,
and 1967 the Nexa [assumed spelling], which changes everything.
Mahfouz is one of the few writers who actually comments on the Nexa,
but in the form of a series of cryptic
and highly circular short stories.
In a telephone conversation with me in 1970,
he said that he was having a terrible time.
This was about style again.
A terrible time getting out of this cryptic style,
that he felt it necessary to use to state certain things
about Egypt at that time.
Looking back in anger, perhaps, one might say, after 1967,
there is this process of questioning,
and the particular prevalence of two terms-- [foreign word spoken],
heritage; and [foreign word spoken], [foreign term] is a difficult word
to translate into English,
but something like cultural authenticity, or authenticity
to your sense of identity.
And as the Ambassador mentioned, the emergence, thanks to Naguib Mahfouz
and his influence of a whole series of younger writers,
perhaps most prominent of all, his very close friend and disciple,
Gamal Hetani [assumed spelling].
And then 1988, he wins the Nobel Prize.
A process in which I was closely involved.
It's interesting of course that in the Nobel citation,
no work written after 1967 is mentioned.
And the reason behind that of course is that no work written
after that period was yet available in English translation,
and that we have here, Professor William Hutchens,
who of course is the translator of the trilogy, which was not available
at the time of the Nobel award.
The Nobel committee read the trilogy in French
because that had just come out.
But there's one kind of attempt to write a history.
Including Naguib Mahfouz in it.
Let me suggest that another way of getting at this now is
to take a more thematic approach.
Because one thing which is quite clear is that while I've just said
that the first novel he wrote was set in ancient Egypt,
and then he wrote three ancient Egyptian novels,
he didn't just write those three and then change
and never go back to that.
So my first theme is indeed the Pharaonic theme.
As I've said, Mahfouz was interested
in ancient Egypt throughout his career.
There are short stories.
There was mention of ancient Egypt in [foreign language spoken].
And then of course we have those extremely politically astute works,
[foreign language spoken],
which seems to be a tilt toward a re-thinking of the role
of Ganal Abdel Nasser, in the context of a re-thinking of the role
of Anwar Sadat, both of whom are brought before this jury
to have their particular careers evaluated and some
of the comments are really quite pointed.
Second theme would be religion and modernity.
Obviously, there is Abulat Haretna [assumed spelling],
which while it aroused the ire of al-ashar [assumed spelling]
because of its personification of prophets,
seems to be far more important as a study of humanity's proclivity
to violence and the organization of communities within that framework.
Followed up by what I regard as one of the finest
of all modern Arabic short stories, Zaabalawi, which in a sense takes
up many of the same themes and puts them into a larger context.
Zaabalawi, just to quote one little thing,
Zaabalawi is a religious figure being pursued by the police
on a charge of false pretenses.
Well, if you know Naguib Mahfouz, you know that he's actually,
they're actually talking about the role of religion
in a modern secular society which, of course, has become even more
of an issue in subsequent decades, if anything.
Then, perhaps above all in this category,
the one which astonished me when it first came out,
[foreign language spoken], in English, Echoes of An Autobiography.
I once discussed this with Gamal Katani [assumed spelling] and said
that this seemed to me to be a work which is totally steeped
in the tradition of pre-modern Sufi literature,
particularly the writer Mohammed Anifari [assumed spelling],
and I was very pleased, therefore, when the next issue
of [foreign title spoken] came out, it was on [foreign language spoken],
Sufi literature, Gamal Katani included several extracts
from [foreign language spoken] as examples
of contemporary Sufi writing.
Thirdly, I suppose the category of Mahfouz
which we all know best, the sagas.
The trilogy, particularly, of course.
Clearly the most famous
and well-known work in the Anglophone world.
But beyond that, as we've heard before, [foreign language spoken],
which is going to be discussed later,
the one which I've just translated, [foreign language spoken],
and also one of his virtuoso exercises,
and here's where this organized bureaucrat comes in,
[foreign language spoken].
And when you try to think about how you organize works
like [foreign language spoken] and al-Maraya,
so that the characters are listed in alphabetical order,
but they are also cross-referenced.
Try and figure out how you actually do that.
How you go about composing it.
It's really an example of his organizational craft.
When it comes to experiments in writing,
I have to say that having translated [foreign title spoken] into English,
that clearly Naguib Mahfouz is to develop his technique
of writing dialogue from those early stages to a much later stage,
when the dialogue is tight and compact, and also frequently witty.
The dialogue in Khan el-Khalili is a bit stiff.
And I don't think there's anything wrong in saying that, in fact,
those novels of the 1940s, and the trilogy,
are part of a middle period of his writing.
And being a great writer, as the Ambassador hinted a few moments ago,
he is continually experimenting and trying to improve
and change his technique.
Internal monologue versus much more elusive kinds of description.
For me as a translator, that becomes glaringly obvious
between Khan el-Khalidi and the trilogy,
where every chapter will begin by placing it in a detailed description
of an environment, and telling you what time of day it is,
and then you get the action, as opposed to the novels of the 60s
and then even later where there is just the slightest illusion.
When we were publishing the translation of Miramar,
I had the privilege of going through--
being one of the editors of the text at the time, and there was just,
in one of these pieces of stream of consciousness,
there was a single sentence, a memory and two statues.
That's all it said, a memory and two statues.
And with the translator, [foreign language spoken],
we went to see Naguib Mahfouz in the [foreign language spoken],
and he said "What's that mean?"
A memory and two statues.
He said, "Well it's obvious, isn't it?
[foreign language spoken]."
The statue on the Qasr al Nil bridge in Cairo
and the statue in Alexandria.
Well, there's a footnote in the translation now,
in case you're wondering [chuckling].
Bearing in mind what I said earlier
about importation versus the indigenous.
His post-1967 return to some of the narrative models of the past,
what's Mahfouz's favorite work himself?
The answer is, according to me, a conversation, it's el-Harafish.
That's the work he liked best.
That's the work where he thought he'd managed to achieve everything
that he wanted to in the way that he wanted to.
So there you have a traditional kind
of Sira literature of multi-generations.
[Foreign name spoken] with its use of characters
from the Thousand and One Nights.
[Foreign language spoken], an example of travel literature.
And I had already mentioned [foreign name spoken]
as an example of Sufi literature.
So there is an attempt to try to look at Naguib Mahfouz, the writer,
maybe within a historical perspective, but not trying
to divide things up chronologically into categories
into which his works really don't fit very well, at least if you deal
with all of them and not just a select few.
He can't be put into a historical straight jacket.
He is much too important for that.
Not only within the history of Egyptian culture,
but now within the history of world narrative.
To which he certainly now belongs.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the Nobel Prize has left him
in the Western mind as the describer of Cairo at a particular period.
If you go to any of the major book stores in the Anglophone world
and look at the shelves, you can guarantee that one of the volumes
of the trilogy will be on the shelf, which is probably very nice
for Bill Hitchens [chuckles], but when a new translation has come out,
it's been there for a few weeks, but then it disappears.
It's the trilogy that people think about,
and not this vast other repertoire of works
for which he should be well-known.
He was well-known for that in Cairo in 1957, but that was 1957,
not the following 50 years of his creativity.
After 67, he became very well known by this younger generation
of Egyptians and other writers, and I've been specializing
in Moroccan literature recently, and he's equally well-known there.
I once went into a Tunisian book store to try
and buy some Tunisian literature, and they showed me the shelves
which had on them [Foreign name spoken], Gibran, and Naguib Mahfouz.
There wasn't a single Tunisian work on any of the shelves,
but that's another story.
What I want to finish by suggesting is
that the Naguib Mahfouz we think we know is an immensely variegated,
incredibly talented, and wonderfully human person.
It's now, I think, our duty to place his total of into a variety
of different perspectives, and perhaps to leave behind some
of the efforts at literary history into which he's been placed so far.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Mary Jane Deeb: Thank you Professor Allen.
I think this was a brilliant overview of his work
and major themes, and we couldn't have started the conference
in a better-- with a better presentation.
Now the second author, with whom I am slightly acquainted,
Dr. Marius Deeb, who also holds a Doctorate from Oxford University.
In fact, both Roger and Marius were at Oxford relatively
at the same time, and Roger Allen recommended [foreign name spoken]
in Egypt when Marius went to do his research in Egypt.
Professor Deeb also worked with Albert Hourani,
the leading authority on Middle Eastern politics and history.
He teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies
of Johns Hopkins University, and had previously taught
at Indiana University, the American University of Beirut,
and Georgetown University, and his publications are many
and varied there, but primarily, he's a historian
and political scientist who, obviously, by studying Egypt,
fell in love with Naguib Mahfouz's work
and this is why he is here today.
But his publications include party politics in Egypt, the west,
and it's rivals, 1919, 1939, the Lebanese Civil War,
Libya since the revolution, aspects of social and political development,
with a certain Mary Jane Deeb, militant Islamic movements
in Lebanon, origins, social basis and ideology, Syria terrorist war
in Lebanon, the peace process, and Syria, Iran and Hesbala,
the Unholy Alliance, and its war on Lebanon.
He will now join us to give another view
of Naguib Mahfouz, on the micro level.
Roger Allen gave the macro level.
So Professor Deeb [applause].
>> Marius Deeb: Thank you very much, that from Mary Jane Deeb.
I would-- I am concentrating on Zuqaq al-Midaq
which was published in 1947.
It's a study where I study names and find the meaning of the names,
how Mahfouz plays with these games, by showing the different names
and the meanings, but also Zuqaq al-Midaq is really a novel
beyond that.
It's a novel about the traditional world and the modern world.
So there has been a tendency among scholars to analyze Zuqaq al-Midaq
as a novel dealing primarily with the problem of poverty
in an old quarter and overlook the sociocultural dimensions
of the novel.
Although realism is portrayed, [inaudible] with themes,
which transcend the [inaudible] setting and [inaudible] to Egypt
if not to the Middle East as a whole.
With this novel, the division between the traditional world
and the modern world in Egypt during the 1940s,
this was to some extent a re-enactment
of the East-West dichotomy and the values, whether aesthetic or moral,
which accompany these worlds.
Moreover, a close examination of Midaq Alley shows an ingenuous use
of symbols and ironies by Mahfouz to illustrate these themes.
On one level, Midaq Alley is a novel about a specific place or location.
It's about a small alley of [foreign name spoken] street
in the old [foreign word spoken] quarter of Al-Hussein,
which consists of two houses, with three flats each, and five shops
of various sizes and business pursuit.
The topography of the Zuqaq symbolizes the world
which it envelops.
The Zuqaq's entrance is narrower than of a large modern building
in the elegant Sharif Pasha Street.
The Zuqaq, from within, resembles a trap, with walls on three sides,
making darkness one of its pervasive features.
Its only outlet is on [foreign word spoken] Street, thus the Midaq,
the Zuqaq al-Midaq is at once both isolated, thereby, isolated
and constituting a world of its own,
and connected to the outside world through that exit.
It's precisely this contrast between what could be called the world
of Midaq Alley, and the world beyond Midaq Alley,
which used the major theme of the novel.
These two worlds are simultaneously separate and interacting,
and Mahfouz masterly achievement lies in his ability
to depict them mostly, but not entirely, from the perspective
of the inhabitants of the Zuqaq.
Mahfouz gives his social certification,
or perhaps social topography of the Midaq Alley.
On the very top of the ladder, there is [foreign name spoken]
who does not reside in the alley, but the premises
of his business enterprise are there.
He's a wholesale and retain perfume merchant
who made large profits during World War II
by selling tea on the black market.
[Foreign name spoken] became wealthy enough to move from his residence
from the [foreign term spoken] quarter
to the Helmia [assumed spelling] quarter, where he bought the villa.
He belongs to the social stratum known as [foreign term spoken]
or [foreign term spoken], but particularly
to the upper echelons of that stratum.
On the second rung of the social ladder,
we find the widow [foreign name spoken],
who owns one of the two houses over the Midaq
and significantly occupies the top floor of the house.
She earns her income as a landlady and as the owner of two shops
at [foreign name spoken], accumulated sufficient money
to have a salient account in the bank.
Afify [assumed spelling] belongs to the middle echelons
of the people [foreign name spoken].
The next character is Sheikh Radwan Hussain,
comes next on the social ladder.
He owns the other house in the Midaq Alley, as well as a few [inaudible],
he is a man of religion who prayed the [inaudible]
and experienced personal tragedies, but never flinched in his faith in
and love of God and humanity.
As his name denotes, Radwan, it indicates he is content
with his life and perhaps symbolically resides
in the middle floor of his house, he is readily well-off
and has the reputation of being a fair landlord
in dealing with his tenants.
All the other characters of the Zuqaq belong
to a social strata lower than that, of Alwan, Afify, and Hussain.
For instance, [inaudible] Kirsha is a cafe proprietor and leader
of the cafe association in his quarter.
He is a profligate who spends his money on hashish and sexual pursuit.
His son, Hussain Kirsha, worked in a bicycle repair shop
for three piezas a day, but when he moved to work
for the British Army camp, his wages rose ten-fold.
And his income was further supplemented
by profits on the black market.
So when he loses his job, that's the son of Kirsha, Hussain Kirsha,
at the British Army camp, he returns empty handed to the Zuqaq.
The Kirshas live in the flat above Sheikh Radwan,
and Hussain's residence in the Zuqaq.
The Kirshas, the next character is Umm Hamida,
who is a [inaudible] attended and a marriage broker,
lives with her foster daughter Hamida, on the floor under Afify.
On the first floor of Hussain's house, Uncle Kamil,
the sweet shop owner shares a flat with Abbas Hilu [assumed spelling]
who owns a barber shop in the Alley.
Abbas was able to make both ends meet, but encouraged by his love
for Hamida and prompted by his friend, Hussain Kirsha,
to seek economic opportunities elsewhere, he sells his shop
and starts working for the British Army for 25 Piezas a day.
Next on the social ladder are Jaada and Husniya, who own the bakery
and sleep on the premises.
At the very bottom of the social hierarchy, we have Dr. Booshy
who practices dentistry without any formal training,
and lives on the bottom of Afify's house.
Finally, there is Zaita, who creates successful beggars
by crippling people and lives in a little outhouse adjacent
to the bakery, which he rents from the bakers, Husniya.
Mahfouz's choice of the very names
of these characters frequently shows the social status.
As he puts it in the words of Faraj Brahaim [assumed spelling],
one of his characters, names are really everything.
What is the world made of except names?
In fact, one can derive the social status and/or discern the basic
qualities of the major characters of the novel from their names.
The names Alwan and Suniya [assumed spelling] are appropriate
of the high standing, Alwan and Suniya,
to high social standing of the two characters.
The name, the baker's name, Jaada, meaning "crease or wrinkle,"
is akin to the nature of his profession, as well as to the fact
of the frequent beatings he receives from his wife.
Lastly, let's consider the two characters who did not live or work
in the Zuqaq, but whose visits left a lasting mark
on the inhabitants of the Zuqaq.
Brahim Farhad [assumed spelling], the candidate who is running
for Parliament, brings, as his name Farhad suggests, joy and spirit
of festivity to the Alley.
During his electoral campaign,
Faraj Brahim Masafim [assumed spelling] whom Hamida encounters
during that festive rally, which accompanies Farhad's campaign,
brings her relief, Faraj, from the disappointment
with Salim Alwan's sudden heart condition
which followed his proposal to her, which shattered her hopes of moving
out of the Alley and becoming rich.
Hamida later views Faraj as her life, and her happiness,
who saves her from the restrictive confines of the world of Midaq Alley
and makes her realize the opportunities
which exist in the world beyond.
So Zuqaq al-Midaq could be viewed as a novel about an ageless
or a timeless alley, although its events
on the other hand take place during a specific period
of time, the winter of 1945.
To show the winter seasons and references to it,
the events of the novel appear to take place in winter,
as these references first Mahfouz says the two houses at the end
of the street have closed their shutters against the cold,
Sheikh Darwish warns Abbas about going there,
headed in weather like this.
Secondly, Mahfouz, other than being in winter taking place,
inadvertently dates for us the events of the novel.
He writes that the terrors of blackouts
and air raids have been taking place for five years,
which points to the fact World War II had already been going on for
that long, thus it must be during the winter of 1944-45
when the events of the novel take place.
Another clue to the specific time
of the novel is the Parliamentary campaign
which is described in Chapter 19.
From the speeches and the views expressed by Brahim Farhad,
who poses as an independent [foreign word spoken] candidate,
but who has close ties with the incumbent Prime Minister and adheres
to the original principle of [foreign word spoken],
one could deduce that Farhad is sad and in sympathy,
and that the Prime Minister is referring to Islam,
but the first side is Prime Minister, [foreign name spoken].
The latter came to power on October 7, 1944, after dismissal
of the [inaudible] Prime Minister, [foreign name spoken], therefore,
the elections referred to could only be those which followed on the heels
of the dissolution of the [inaudible] Parliament of 1942-44.
The campaign for those elections were during December 1944,
and culminated in the general elections of January 9, 1945.
So after determining the specific location, social topography,
and the specific time of the novel,
let us now consider it's major theme.
Namely, the contrast between the world of the Midaq Alley
and the world beyond the Midaq Alley.
The physical features of the Zuqaq,
as portrayed by the author are uncomplimentary.
Mahfouz described a hideousness and absence of cleanliness,
which are reinforced by setting the novel during the winter season,
with darkness and cold weather,
adding to the dreariness of the place.
Some of the inhabitants of the Alley reflect its physical features.
Uncle Kamil, not unlike the Zuqaq itself, has an ageist look.
Mahfouz, in fact, does not give us his age.
His huge body, almost without features, has been contrasted
with his high-pitched voice.
Malim [assumed spelling] Kirsha puts in relief another aspect
of the world of the Midaq Alley, as his name denotes, Kirsha cowers
and shrivels, and his hashish addiction represents an old custom
prevalent among the members of the lower classes of Cairo,
going back to the middle of the 13th century.
Dr. Booshy and Zaita are examples of the ugliness and the dirt
which characterizes the Zuqaq.
Zaita in particular is a hideous creature who creates cripples
out of those who want to be successful beggars,
and who is clever in teaching them the art of imbecility.
The sophisticated quarters of Cairo which are mentioned in the novel,
such as Sherif Basha Street, Amatadine Street [assumed spelling]
and Queen Farid Square, are set in contrast to the Zuqaq.
The glittering lights of the elegant attire of the residents
of these quarters are seen through Hamida's eyes
when he's courting Faraj by taxi
to Sherif Basha Street, where he resides.
Hamida, for instance, notes that the entrance of the building
where Faraj lives is wider than the entrance of the Zuqaq.
Faraj finds no difficulty in convincing Hamida
of the superior quality of life in the world beyond the Midaq Alley,
as he appeals to the luxuriousness and comfortable living
which Hamida could enjoy if she left the Alley
and moved to Sherif Basha Street.
Faraj describes the Zuqaq as "a graveyard
of decaying bones," it's full of hardships.
A place where beauty fades away,
while life in the world beyond the Midaq Alley is full of live,
wealth and happiness, as the contrast between the worlds is
so great, Faraj suggests that Hamida too must change her name to Titi,
and obviously her attire as well, only her ugly hands and her shirt
and coarse voice are reminders of the world of the Midaq.
The contrast between the two worlds can be seen
through the changing relationship between individuals.
For instance, when Abbas accidentally meets Hamida,
she realizes the gulf which separates them.
She tells him, "We are complete strangers now, I can't go back
and you can't change me."
Even Abbas, who loves Hamida, is fully aware of the distance
which separates them, and separates the two worlds.
It's all over between them, for Hamida he loved,
the Hamida he loved, no longer exists.
If the two worlds are so different in quality of life,
physical features, and aesthetic values, can one deduce
that somehow one world is more superior to the other?
Mahfouz leaves no doubt that his treatment of his characters
that both worlds are on equal footing, morally speaking.
First, if Faraj Ibrahim is a master pimp who runs a school
of prostitutes for the world,
prostitutes for the world beyond the alley,
Malim Kirsha is procuring men prostitutes
for himself in the alley.
Secondly, Hussain Kirsha is neither astonished at what happened
to Hamida, nor does he blame Faraj for it, after all,
what his foster sister Hamida experienced was not unlike what one
of his real sisters, who ended up in prison, went through.
Thirdly, [inaudible] Kirsha admires Faraj's talents, and his main reason
for agreeing to join Abbas to stand up to Faraj, perhaps to punish him,
is his hope of extorting some money of the latter,
or that he's getting a portion of the profits
if not replacing Faraj himself.
Similarly, Hamida, by the end of the novel, has resigned himself
to Hamida's income in her profession as a prostitute.
Alwar's huge profits from the black market in tea is, on a larger scale,
not unlike Hussain Kirsha's involvement in the black market
in partnership with corporate [foreign name spoken].
Finally, Dr. Booshy and Zaita's frequent robberies
of the cemeteries, not to mention the exploitation and sadism practice
on the beggars whom Zaita cripples, are hardly commendable acts.
In Chapter 19 of the novel, Mahfouz relates the visit
of the Candidate Brahim Farhad, and describes the political corruption
which accompanied, in particular, Parliamentary elections
under minority, [inaudible] cabinet such as the elections of 1945
under the sadist cabinet of [foreign name spoken].
Farhad's appearance indicates that his belly was of greater importance
than his head, Mahfouz says.
Mahfouz subjugates his depiction of the electoral campaign
with [inaudible] and puns.
For instance, Uncle Kamil mistakes the pavilion which is set
up for the election rally for a funeral pavilion.
While Farhad is in Kirsha's cafe, a boy distributes small posters
which everyone believes are campaign posters,
which turn out to be posters advertising a potion
to rejuvenate the aged.
The people of the Zuqaq, and others, view the electoral campaign
as a source of income, as clearly shown in the attitude
of madam Kirsha, who regards the fifteen Egyptian pounds offered
by Farhad for his campaign and his services in his campaign,
which he reluctantly accepts, as insufficient.
People are delighted with the campaign, as they have not recovered
from the shock of the previous election of 1942,
when the candidate who won was uncontested.
It's not accidental that Hamida has her first encounter
with Faraj Brahaim in the midst of the political rally.
Mahfouz is implying that the nature
of electoral campaigning is not unlike Faraj's profession,
therefore, one can maintain that Mahfouz is telling us that the world
of Midaq Alley is not morally superior to the world
of beyond the Alley, as [foreign name spoken] puts it,
"There is no romantic tendency to claim special moral qualities
for the simple folk at the expense of the rest of humanity."
It's my contention that the major characters,
contrary to the prevalent view that they were crushed
by social circumstances in general and by poverty in particular,
were fully responsible for their action.
Let us take the case of Hamida.
Mahfouz never states anywhere in the novel
that Hamida has been forced to become a prostitute.
Her case was different to the majority of other girls, he says,
who had been forced to by necessity or circumstances
into the present life, and were often tormented by remorse.
Mahfouz depicts Hamida as having an irresistible urge
to leave the Alley.
She is an ambitious social climber who pins the hopes on Alwar,
who wants to marry her, when sudden illness shatters her dream,
and thus, she wants more than ever to leave the Alley.
It's as though her beauty is incongruous
with the hideous surroundings of the world of the Alley,
and therefore pushes her to the world beyond where beauty
and beautiful objects are fully appreciated.
Faraj never denies his profession, but as he has foresight
into Hamida's character, he tries to show her that the options
from which she can really choose.
He tells her, "No one has power over you, and no one wants
to force you into anything.
You must make up your mind, own mind, however,
it's my duty to give you the facts, and then the choice is yours."
Despite the disappointment mixed with pleasure,
which characterizes Hamida's new life, she has chosen it freely
in the sense that she realizes that in order to have fine clothes,
jewelry and money, she has to sink low to demean herself.
When Abbas accidentally meets Hamida,
she pretends she had no choice, it's all the will of God,
so that she can use him for revenge on Faraj,
who continues to exploit her economically
in a professional manner,
but no longer pays any personal attention to her.
Similarly, Hussain Kersha is responsible for his action.
He opts to leave the Zuqaq as he has been working for the British Army,
but his extravagant lifestyle deters him from saving money,
thus when he is laid off by the British, he is forced to go back
to the Alley with a life and a brother-in-law to boot.
The lack of foresight which makes him squander his wages forces his
return to the Alley, which he detests.
Hussain Kersha cannot possibly blame anyone but himself.
Abbas [foreign name spoken], whose name denotes he is a handsome hero,
and good mannered young man, is content with his life
in the Midaq Alley because of a basically resolute character,
at best, is pushed willy-nilly by his friend Hussain Kersha,
and his love for Hamida, to sell his shop in the Zuqaq and to go to work
for the British Army camp.
At best, is pulled by two opposing forces, his ambition and love
of Hamida, push him in the direction of the world beyond the Midaq,
while his loyalty and contentment push him back into the Midaq.
Abbas pays too high a price for his reckless behavior
when he finds Hamida with one of the British soldiers, and in a moment
of uncontrollable rage, throws a bottle of beer into Hamida's face,
and consequently, he is consequently beaten
to death by the British soldiers.
Here, the two worlds, and their attendant values clash,
and Abbas is literally crushed in between.
Sheikh Darwish is another also caught between the two worlds,
and becomes a wanderer with no home and no purpose.
In his youth, we are told Sheikh Darwish was an English teacher
in one of the [inaudible] schools, however, when the schools
of the minister of [foreign name spoken] merge
with the [foreign word spoken] of education, he becomes a clerk
at the Ministry of [foreign word spoken] and is demoted from the 6th
to the 8th civil service grade.
Darwish is a victim of the clash of the two worlds,
the traditional and the modern.
His frustration at the ministry
of [foreign word spoken] expresses itself in various ways,
until he tells the Deputy Minister, "I am the messenger of God bringing
to you a new [inaudible]."
Sheikh Darwish lives nowhere because he belongs
to neither the Midaq Alley nor the world beyond it.
Or perhaps, he belongs simultaneously to both worlds.
He is an offendee who becomes a Sheikh.
His attire symbolizes his confusing mixture of the two worlds.
His gold-rimmed spectacles and necktie represent a modern world,
while his flowing outer garment
and his wooden clogs represent a tradition.
This is also symbolically conveyed to us by Sheikh Darwish's use
of both Arabic and English to express his views.
He is loved by the people, and he is regarded as a holy man of God,
[foreign word spoken], to whom revelation came
into two languages, Arabic and English.
In conclusion, I maintain that Midaq Alley is a novel depicting the
peculiar world of Midaq Alley and contrasting it
with the world beyond the Alley.
Mahfouz is wittingly or unwittingly shattering the mythical aura
that surrounds the life of the [inaudible] quarter
as the embodiment of the Egyptian authenticity [foreign word spoken]
by showing at first its utter uncomeliness,
and secondly as its remarkable lack of any redeeming moral values.
All the events which Midaq Alley witnesses are, according to Mahfouz,
bubbles which subside as the Alley practices the eternal virtue
of oblivion and indifference.
Mahfouz is telling us that Midaq Alley is a dead end, both literally
and figuratively, and the only solution is to liberate humanity
from the world of the Midaq Alley.
Nevertheless, Mahfouz seems to be pessimistic about that
such prospect, as the ageist Alley can neither disappear nor be wished
away, and the divide which separates it from the rest
of the world will become greater than ever.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Mary Jane Deeb: Thank you, thank you Marius.
And as you can see, the detail to which Naguib Mahfouz goes
when he describes the lives of people and the richness
of those novels, as seen through the characters, it is quite striking.
Fawzi Tadros is one of our own.
He is from the Library of Congress, and as I said,
the one who was behind the idea of having this conference today.
He has been persistent for the last three years.
And his persistence has paid off.
Fawzi Tadros, Dr. Fawzi Tadros, is an Arab world specialist
in the Near-East Section of the African-Middle East Division
of the Library of Congress, where he has worked since 1976.
He left us for a little while and headed our Cairo office,
and then came back, much to our relief.
Receiving his undergraduate education in Egypt and working
at [foreign name spoken], the Egyptian National Library,
he later came to the United States and studied
and received his Master's Degree from the University of Utah
and another from Indiana University and the University of Michigan.
Subsequently, Dr. Tadros earned his doctorate
at Tyler University in 1997.
Fawzi Tadros has also served as a Unesco [assumed spelling] expert
in library science at Cutter University
and received the Senior Fulbright Award to teach at Cutter University.
He has published seven books, and many articles and is often requested
to give scholarly presentations.
Most recently, he was invited to travel to Sudan
by the Sudanese Ministry of Culture to participate in a conference
on folklore, where he presented a paper
about the lyrical theater in Egypt.
So Dr. Fawzi Tadros will now join us [applause].
>> Dr. Fawzi Tadros: I'm delighted to see all of you here today
and my topic is about one of the most important novels written
by Naguib Mahfouz, in my point of view at least.
It's name is [foreign title spoken], The Beginning and The End.
[Foreign title spoken] was written in the 1940s.
It is considered a classic [inaudible] of Arabic literature,
and was, in fact, made into a movie in the 1960s.
The events of this novel are set in the poor part
of the Chobra district in the 1930s.
[Inaudible] acts of faith starts just before the beginning
of the action by the death of the father.
The head of the lower middle class family whose fortune,
or rather misfortunes, constitute the subject of the book.
The death of the father, in many
of Naguib Mahfouz's novels, is an important theme.
Mahfouz writes of a patriarchic society in which the absence
of the father brings disaster to the family.
A reflection of the importance of the father in this society.
Some critics believe that this theme of the death of the father
in a family occupies the mind of Naguib Mahfouz.
Readers of the novel may find it cruel,
but for traditional pre-war Egyptian society,
tragedy was the only possible conclusion,
but the rest of the tragedy does not simply follow from this one,
and its capable interference in human life.
Already of limited means, the family, which is made up of a widow,
three sons, and a daughter, is now renewed
through the pension left by the dead father.
The ancient-- the action of the world
of the novel spans some four years, during which the proud daughter
of a professional family is first reduced, the tragic moment,
changing the family's life forever.
After the death of the father, the family meets together
and is sustained by the mother, who, as Mahfouz puts it,
was the mainstay of the family.
She was not defeated by the loss of her husband
and the resulting economic hardship, nor did she complain.
She did not lose her essential qualities of perseverance,
determination and strength.
The mother becomes responsible for the three sons and the daughter.
She is not the type of woman to resort to tears.
Her past life becomes a dream.
Life for her has become not an easy one.
She looks at her sons, who resemble the father,
and she turns her face toward her daughter and sighs deeply,
agonizing over her condition, but she sees a girl of 20 years,
without beauty, money or father.
The eldest son, Hassan, with the death of the father, is not the type
of person the family could count on for help.
He urges his mother to rely on God.
He tells his mother that if, as she says,
God does not forget his creatures and he is one of them,
then the whole family should wait to see how God will act with them.
This argument reflects, and in fact affirms,
the tradition on Middle Eastern belief that God has the power
and the will to lead everyone in the world out of their predestination.
Hassan, the oldest son, drops out of school as a child.
He became a nightclub dancer and drug trafficker.
He is convinced of his ability to find a job to provide him with food,
shelter, and a glass of wine and hashish.
A few women.
And that is all that he wants in life.
Despite his distorted sense of morality,
Hassan possesses some redeeming credits, most notably compassion
and the responsibility toward his family.
He provides his family with some necessities.
He meets an attractive prostitute named Senna [assumed spelling]
who has sufficient means and an apartment in one of the streets
of Cairo where prostitutes gather.
And then Senna has a good heart.
She has a good heart, and helps his brother, Hasanayn,
pay his military academy tuition by selling bracelets.
Hassan's life goes from bad to worse,
and he becomes hunted by police.
The second son, Husayn, Hasanayn, optimist,
believes that God will help the family.
He believes that God will help everyone that patience
and fortitude are needed.
He gave up his hopes of higher education and became a clerk
in the Ministry of Higher Education
in a city called [Foreign name spoken].
He explains to his younger brother, Hasanayn,
that while God may be responsible for the death of their father,
he is by no means responsible for the inadequacy
of the pension he left them.
Here, he questions the social justice.
This may be out of human hands,
but social injustice is entirely man-made, and therefore, curable.
In their discussion, the two brothers, Hassan and Hasanayn,
talk about their situation reflecting Mahfouz's concern not
only with the poverty as the cause of the discontent
of the Egyptian lower middle class, but also the reliability
of religious faith to relieve that feeling.
The third character is the youngest of the family, Hasanayn,
who thanks to the sacrifice of the rest of the family,
sets out to escape misfortune.
After graduating from the military academy,
he had hoped to marry the daughter of an influential man,
when his hopes are dashed, he blames it on the status of his poor family
and on Hassan's job, and on Nefisa's job as a seamstress.
He does not know that Nefisa has another more shameful calling.
The daughter, Nefisa, is in my point
of view a most important character in the novel.
Nefisa faces a severe struggle between two realities.
In the past, her reality had been one
of the security and the peace of mind.
Her father had provided her with this.
But following his death, her reality shifts from security to uncertainty.
At this point in her life, she has no idea what fate has in store
for her, and her feelings are very bad.
Aside from her internal conflicts, she possesses a new-found freedom
which comes from her profession as a working seamstress.
Soon after her father's death,
Nefisa comes across a man named Solomon, who was employed
by a local grocery store.
He was an average looking man of lower social class,
but Nefisa regards him as a suitable match.
Now, Nefisa was not a radiant beauty.
Her looks are slightly less appealing than one would hope for.
Nefisa often dreams of a prince who is handsome and successful,
but she knows these are foolish fantasies,
and that she must accept reality, no matter how bleak.
Solomon, as it turns out, reciprocates her feeling of desire.
He senses her willingness to be pursued,
and they act on that desire, even though he is fully aware
that his father had planned for him
to marry the daughter of a local merchant.
But of this, Nefisa is ignorant,
in her mind Solomon is the one she longs to marry.
But marriage with Nefisa has never came across Solomon's mind.
Solomon has other plans.
Nefisa is just a pleasurable diversion.
In her meeting Solomon, Nefisa is more worried about time constraints
than about being recognized in the streets with a man
who is not related to her.
She begins seeing Solomon in increments.
In her mind, the potential outcome outweighed the risk.
In Solomon's mind, this potential was non-existent.
His thoughts were all about seduction.
Once attained what he sought,
he would be on the next unsuspecting girl looking for love in places
where love did not exist.
Solomon, to Nefisa, was an addiction which could not be remedied.
She had never felt such passion toward anyone else.
He makes her feel beautiful, for once in her life, she was desired.
Solomon picks her up from a place of desire and despair,
and raises her to a place of hope.
His mild flirtations are just enough to set her over the edge,
but not enough to cross any sort of line.
She truly believes that he will be her partner in life.
Nefisa and Solomon begin going to more secluded areas,
and sneaking off to his apartment one day, now it will be vacant.
Nefisa begins to feel that she is losing control, and is overpowered
by emotion he arouses in her.
She allows him to take her innocence, what she once held close
to her is gone eternally.
She is struggling.
She berates herself for giving up the values her parents had spent
so long instilling in her, for one feeling moment of desire.
She has done 23 years of her life prior to meeting this man,
living a pure life, without a speck of temptation.
She gave into her urge, and disregarded everything else.
She could also do nothing
to take her actions back, what is done is done.
She must live with any outcome.
But the very fact that she is questioning her actions shows her
that she still has values.
Had she been able to just walk away from the situation
as though nothing had happened, she would have felt no remorse.
But despite her struggle, she continues down her chosen path.
The temptation appears worth the risk,
and she continues her relations with Solomon,
whose charm proves more powerful than her sense of self-control.
He seemed to bring out her inner demons.
Nefisa's family is still unaware of this relationship.
Nefisa is able to see that Solomon is only fulfilling his human
impulses and nothing more.
After all, she had achieved more than ever anticipated.
He was under the impression that everything was consensual
and that they were on the same page.
Solomon was wrong.
Nefisa still has a sense of dignity and she is not
on the same page with him.
She still longs to be wed, but fate has other plans for her,
and Nefisa soon learns that Solomon is engaged to a neighbor girl.
Poverty weighs heavily on the lives of Nefisa and her family.
The only viable solution to this problem was the aquisition
of capital for her week at work as a clothes maker.
Nefisa realizes that her brothers cannot provide for the family.
Her younger brother, Hasanayn, does not work.
Her brother Husayn moved from Cairo to the city
of Tanta [assumed spelling] for work.
Hassan, her eldest brother, turns to a life of crime,
leaving the family home to live with a woman.
It is up to her to become the provider, her interactions
with others make her realize the poverty of her family.
Solomon goes on to marry and leaves Nefisa alone.
Soon after, she meets a man named Mohammed Alful [assumed spelling].
He has no romantic interest in her,
and is only after the same thing Solomon was.
Nefisa is now fully aware of her limitations.
She knows the limits of her appearance and her figure.
She also knows the obstacle of the poverty, which she faces.
Nefisa decides to give in to her desire in exchange for money.
Alful is willing to pay, and she turns to a life of prostitution,
feeling that she has nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Her experience becomes purely business transactions.
The difference between the two women was just this--
she expected the world from Solomon, she expected nothing
from Alful, but what he gave.
Nefisa had hit bottom.
She could not fight off her natural desire, and she didn't even try.
The easy money she acquired took hold of her.
She was receiving both at the same time, what more could she ask for?
It was the desire of Alful which made her charge money,
had he not been so infatuated,
she would have had nothing to charge for.
Alful was an affluent character.
He called the shots in their relationship.
He sets the price, and she sets the quantity
of time which he wanted her for.
Poverty ha been the deciding factor in her downfall.
It was necessary for Nefisa to provide for her younger brother,
although she was assisting Hasanayn a great deal, he resented the manner
in which she achieved it.
At the time, the profession of seamstress was regarded as menial,
it was not an occupation in which one would take pride,
and as a man of a proud military background,
Hasanayn would not acknowledge the fact
that his sister had such a vocation.
Had he only known of her true profession,
he would have been devastated from the shame.
A seamstress in comparison would have looked
like a golden profession.
It never once crossed Hasanayn's mind that the money
on which the family was living was tainted.
He lived in the dark under the assumption
that it was made from an honest living.
Now that the family has a more stable income,
life became more prosperous destination.
And filled with the desire for change,
and achieving this change was the ultimate goal.
The road taken did not matter as long as the destination was reached.
The road she chose sucked her in and there were no exit ramps ahead.
She had gone too far to turn back.
Her own mother was not aware, she only saw the money coming in.
She did not question it.
She did not feel as though there was any need to question.
After all, she and her husband had spent years instilling positive
value in the daughter.
It was this which may have caused Nefisa to be internally conflicted.
She was tortured, tormented by perplexing questions.
Was she truly satisfied?
Was she willing to continue, and for how long?
There was no solid answer to any of this.
Nefisa was cunning.
She was able to mask the truth.
She emphasized purity which she did not have.
She continued to lighten the room with her bubbly personality,
the personality her father had encouraged.
She acted just as she did when her father was still alive and well.
She didn't allow her demons to show,
only when she was alone did she reflect on her life.
Her reflections led to her pondering the past, thinking of the present,
and contemplating the future.
She was deep in thought, the future was obscure.
As time continued to pass by her,
Hasanayn had finished serving his time at the academy.
He was now an officer, and bringing in a nice income.
On his salary, he was able to fulfill the needs of the family.
Their hardships were no longer an unbearable burden.
Hasanayn looked to Nefisa and said, "It is right time you took a rest."
He did not need her to continue to work, and he expressed the hope
that she would quit her job as seamstress.
Initially, she liked the idea of being taken care of.
She excitedly told him, "I will give it up with absolutely no regrets.
I will stay at home as ladies do.
I will be the lady sister of an officer."
Of course, she had no problem quitting, but in the back
of her mind, she did not know
if stopping her secret ways would satisfy her.
After all, it was the life she had grown accustomed to.
It irritated her that she might have to alter her life.
Upon walking away from her conversation with her brother,
different thoughts rushed through her head.
In the text, Naguib Mahfouz described it.
Her face was troubled, her soul disturbed
and her heart fluttering with fear and worry.
He had asked her to stay at home as responsible ladies do,
and she certainly welcomed this,
but when it was done, could not be undone.
She could easily make a pretext for her loose behavior,
the resulting that her object was to earn money
to support her starving family.
True enough, but only part of the truth.
There was a tormenting mortal despair arising her sexual urge,
flaring up more desperately and [inaudible], sorry, than before.
Had become there sweepingly rebellious.
However, Hasanayn is adamant that she quit.
He steps up to the role of father figure, and is the man of the house.
He would ultimately have the final way in decisions.
Nefisa was no longer operating alone,
for she had joined a house of prostitution.
To her, the police raided the establishment,
and she is among the many women at the police station.
The officer called her brother and told him "come here and see
if you have a sister," and the officer
and her brother Hasanayn went to see her.
He found that she is captured in the prostitute house.
And he took her and they went to the river, and from the high bridge,
he asks her to throw herself.
And she did.
And after that, he felt sorry that she did that,
so he also throws himself in the river.
And that's the end of the story.
Thank you.
[Applause]
>> Mary Jane Deeb: Thank you, thank you Dr. Fawzi,
it was really a very moving story, very well told.
Thank you.
We are running late, the reason is that we started late,
and Hollywood is to blame.
So we have time now for three questions.
And please if you ask questions, identify yourself,
and then direct them to the speakers.
We have a microphone here, so if someone wants
to ask a question, we have a microphone.
Okay. Yes.
Yes. There's a question, the microphone.
>> Yes, this question to Dr. Allen.
My name is Oni [assumed spelling] and I am professor of,
you know, at Copen University.
I wonder if Mahfouz he [inaudible] the military.
You know, he lived from 1952 and he lived all the time or most
of the time of four persons who came from the military institution, for,
you know, for, you know, number of stories I read about him,
he didn't tell, you know, military institution.
You may be, you know, you work, I know him more than anyone else
so how you feel about that?
It didn't really tell with the military institution compared
to his counterpart use of [inaudible].
>> Actually, one of the characters
in al-Maraya [assumed spelling] is an unidentified member
of the free officers group.
And that's included in that particular work.
Now I'll admit, he doesn't refer specifically
to that particular aspect, but of course,
for example [foreign title spoken] is actually the only novel
which is set during the July revolution itself,
and there are references there obviously to the free officers
and the fact it's not entirely clear what the situation is going
to be following this revolution.
The only other thing occurs to me, of course, is that as we know,
and that [foreign name spoken] has written about,
he got into a great deal of trouble
for the novel [foreign title spoken].
Because there are some very pointed comments there, that this group
of intellectuals and artists, meeting on a houseboat,
and he says the government, it won't be concerned with us,
they're too busy building things.
But [foreign name spoken] went specifically
to [foreign name spoken] and said
that Mahfouz should be jailed for writing this work.
And it was to our fortune and Mahfouz's,
that [foreign name spoken], another of the three officers,
told [foreign name spoken] that it was a novel,
it's a very interesting idea, and it would be interesting
if somebody had said that about Salman Rushdie a few years later,
not to mention Naguib Mahfouz in 1959 with [foreign name spoken].
But there is, there are allusions, but there is nothing very specific,
apart from all I know is that one specific section.
I'm sorry I can't remember the name, but there are 54 characters,
and I translated it a long time ago, but one of them is one
of the three officers, and it talks about that particular night
when this person was meeting with his friends, but said he had
to leave early, and he goes away, and it's the revolution.
But that's all I know by way
of either specific reference, or allusion.
>> Thank you.
>> Mary Jane Deeb: Any other question?
[Pause] No?
Well then in that case, we have a wonderful luncheon, partly Egyptian,
I know that we have falafel, we have to.
And so I invite you to help yourselves to the lunch,
and we're going to be showing a film right now.
I think it's The Thief and The Dogs.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> Mary Jane Deeb: And one of the most famous of his works.
So I invite you to have lunch, watch the film,
and then we'll have a second panel starting probably around 1:15,
we'll be-- we'll try to catch up with it.
Okay? So thank you for being here,
and thank you for this wonderful panel, that did such a great job.
Thank you.
Let's give them a hand.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.