A Study Guide for Naguib Mahfouz's "The Norwegian Rat"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Naguib Mahfouz's "The Norwegian Rat," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535838689

Book preview

The Norwegian Rat

Naguib Mahfouz

1984

Introduction

First published in Arabic in 1984, Naguib Mahfouz's The Norwegian Rat is a striking example of both social realism and magic realism. The short story, like most of Mahfouz's works, takes place in urban Cairo, Egypt, reflecting the author's own experiences in the city. It examines the lives of ordinary people in an apartment building, painting a picture of social realism, but the author adds elements of mysticism to create a political commentary on the government and bureaucracy. Denys Johnson-Davies translated The Norwegian Rat and other short stories by Mahfouz into English for the 1991 collection The Time and the Place and Other Stories.

Author Biography

Mahfouz was born on December 11, 1911, in Gamaleyya, a section of Cairo, Egypt. He was the youngest of seven children. Although he came from a large family, a large age gap separated Mahfouz from his four brothers and two sisters. He grew up in a traditional, middle-class Muslim family and enjoyed visiting museums with his mother, which prompted a love of history. The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 against the British had a profound impact on his life and view of the world. He supported Egyptian nationalism and later democracy, a fact that is apparent in many of his writings.

He attended King Fouad I University, which would later become the University of Cairo, from 1930 to 1934 and graduated with a degree in philosophy. Mahfouz attended a graduate program for one year before quitting to become a writer. Although he wrote throughout his college career, his work was not published until 1939. Mahfouz also held several positions in civil service while writing, until he retired in 1972. He married late in life so he could focus on his writing, and he and his wife had two