The Quarter

By Naguib Mahfouz and Elif Shafak

Meet the people of Cairo's Gamaliya quarter. There is Nabqa, son of Adam the waterseller who can only speak truths; the beautiful and talented Tawhida who does not age with time; Ali Zaidan, the gambler, late to love; and Boss Saqr who stashes his money above the bath. A neighbourhood of demons, dancing and sweet halva, the quarter keeps quiet vigil over the secrets of all who live there.
This collection by pre-eminent Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz was recently discovered among his old papers. Found with a slip of paper titled 'for publishing 1994', they are published here for the first time. Resplendent with Mahfouz's delicate and poignant observations of everyday happenings, these lively stories take the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saqi Books
• Release date: Jul 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780863563850

Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. His nearly forty novels and hundreds of short stories range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. In 1988, he was the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.

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THE QUARTER

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006) was Egypt’s most eminent writer. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote thirty-four novels, thirteen short story anthologies, numerous plays and thirty screenplays. His works range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. A writer of incredible discipline, every day he wrote for one hour, smoked three cigarettes and walked by the Nile. In 1994, he was stabbed in the neck by religious extremists and was seriously wounded. The injury caused nerve damage that partly paralysed his right hand, preventing him from writing. Of his many novels, his most famous in English translation is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. Other notable works include Children of the Alley, The Thief and The Dogs and Autumn Quail. Naguib Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, the first writer in Arabic to do so.

Praise for Naguib Mahfouz

‘The Arab world’s foremost novelist … Arabic has a rich tradition in poetry, but the novel was not a strong art form until Mahfouz made it accessible.’ New York Times

‘[Mahfouz] populated his works with a cast of memorably strong urban characters. … The result was a body of work that bore comparison with Balzac and Dickens. Mahfouz introduced his audience to a new way of seeing.’ The Economist

‘The world of Naguib Mahfouz is vast and extremely rich. He spans the various changes in the reality, dreams and aspirations of his nation. Although his world is mainly Cairo and the old quarter of Gamaliya in which he spent his childhood, he made the urban scene an elaborate and highly significant metaphor of the national condition.’ Independent

‘Egypt’s greatest living writer … one of the world’s most humane literary figures. Like Zola, Mahfouz chronicled the lives of the most ordinary of his countrymen ... Like Dostoyevsky, he set most of his novels in one beloved city – Cairo, in his case. Like his elders Taha Husayn and Tawfiq al-Hakim, he took on the role of national storyteller.’ The Nation

‘Mahfouz’s work is freshly nuanced and hauntingly lyrical. The Nobel Prize acknowledges the universal significance of [his] fiction.’ Los Angeles Times

‘Mahfouz’s scope is vast and his concerns are not only still evident today, but crucial.’ The Scotsman

Praise for The Cairo Trilogy

‘Luminous … All the magic, mystery and suffering of Egypt in the 1920s are conveyed on a human scale.’ New York Times Book Review

‘It is Mahfouz’s wonderful ability to delineate human beings from their outer appearances which gives Palace Walk its universal appeal. I shall read it again and again.’ The Guardian

‘A masterpiece.’ The Times

‘Teeming with life and contention ... it promises riches.’ Independent

‘Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy puts all contemporary writers in the shade. He is the Arab Tolstoy.’ Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘The alleys, the houses, the palaces and mosques and the people who live among them are evoked as vividly as the streets of London were conjured up by Dickens.’ Newsweek

‘An engrossing work, whose author can take his place alongside any European master you care to name’ Sunday Times

‘A magnificent, Tolstoyan saga ... unmissable.’ Cosmopolitan

‘The Cairo Trilogy extends our knowledge of life; it also confirms it.’ Boston Globe

‘A grand novel of ideas … a marvellous read.’ Washington Post

‘Sugar Street is a marvellous novel, with many messages, open and concealed, for those who will be instructed.’ TLS

‘A masterful kaleidoscope of emotions, ideas and perspective.’ Newsday

‘Mahfouz’s genius is not just that he shows us Egyptian colonial society in all its complexity; it is that he makes us look through the vision of his vivid characters and see people and ideas that no longer seem alien.’ Philadelphia Inquirer

ALSO BY NAGUIB MAHFOUZ

Palace Walk

Palace of Desire

Sugar Street

The Harafish

Midaq Alley

Autumn Quail

God’s World

The Search

Love in the Rain

Heart of the Night

Children of the Alley

The Thief and the Dogs

The Beginning and the End

Miramar

The Beggar

Naguib Mahfouz

THE QUARTER

Translated from Arabic by Roger Allen

SAQI

Saqi Books

26 Westbourne Grove

London W2 5RH

www.saqibooks.com

Published 2019 by Saqi Books

First published in Arabic by Dar al Saqi in 2018

Copyright © The Estate of Naguib Mahfouz 2019

Translation © Roger Allen 2019

Foreword © Elif Shafak 2019

The Estate of Naguib Mahfouz has asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to identify Naguib Mahfouz as the author of this work.

Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech © The Nobel Foundation 1988 Translated by Mohammed Salmawy

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A

A full cip record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 0 86356 375 1

eISBN 978 0 86356 385 0

CONTENTS

Foreword by Elif Shafak

Introduction by Roger Allen

The Oven

Your Lot in Life

Pursuit

Son of the Quarter

Nabqa in the Old Fort

The Scream

Namla’s Prophesy

Bad Luck

Shaikhun

The Arrow

The Whisper of the Stars

Our Father Igwa

The Storm

The End of Boss Saqr

Life is

Reviews for The Quarter

[hemlokgang · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think it is more likely that readers who have read Mahfouz's novels will appreciate these short stories more than readers who have not. Mahfouz is known for his ability to immerse the reader in the life and lives in Cairo with his incredible characters and evocative prose. These stories seem like character sketches. Apparently they were found among the author's belongings after his death. I think they were not intended to be published, yet nonetheless they convey the mindset of life in "the quarter", the secrecy, the superstition, and the intrigue. A fantastic bonus is that Mahfouz' s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature is included with the stories. Such a gifted man and eloquent representative of his culture!

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Naguib Mahfouz was the first Arabic writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and no other Arabic writer has been awarded the Nobel Prize since Mahfouz received it in 1988. (Orhan Pamuk, winner in 2006, wrote in Turkish which is not the same as Arabic.) Given how many Arabic speakers there are in the world (420 million) you would think that there would have been somebody else deserving of the award. French writing laureates number 14 as do German writing winners and those languages are spoken by only one-quarter of the number that speak Arabic. It's not news that the selection for Nobel Literature laureates is manifestly skewed towards white, male Europeans but it does make an interesting backdrop to this book.Mahfouz died in 2006 but this collection of stories was only found recently. They were labellled with a piece of paper saying "For publishin 1994". It's not surprising that they were not published then as Mahfouz was attacked and wounded severely in 1994 as a result of a fatwa issued by a Muslim cleric because Mahfouz supported Salman Rushdie's right to publish after a fatwa was issued against him for writing The Satanic Verses. After reading these stories I wonder if Mahfouz was quite finished his editing of them as some seem clunky and uneven. Or perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood to read these.I did like the story entitled "Tawhida" which is about a young girl who married into the narrator's family and charmed everyone. The narrator seems to have been smitten by her but lost track of her for years. Then one day when he is old a car pulls up in front of him with an old woman as a passenger and she waves to him. He doesn't recognize her. "She had a face that might be an icon to old age: gaunt, pale, thin, and wrinkled. She was wearing dark glasses." But as soon as he heard her voice "the past came rushing back like a perfume bottle smashing to the ground." Such lovely imagery!I have read Mahfouz's more famous book, Midaq Alley, which I enjoyed ver much. So I hope this little book will please some reader.

[belgrade18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of 18 previously unpublished short stories- really sketches- by Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Many of the sketches are only two or three pages, written in a very minimalist style- often with only one or two named characters, and just a few events, all set in an extremely impoverished neighborhood in Cairo, "The Quarter". Although we sense the the stories are taking place in the 20th century, there is very little modern technology mentioned, so that really they could have taken place anytime in the past thousand years in any conservative, traditional Muslim city. Most stories have the style of neighborhood gossip- this girl ran off with the baker's son, this homeless boy heard a ghost- but they aim to speak universal truths. Sometimes there is a moral, but often the story is about bad luck or human nature. Highly recommended to those interested in Mahfouz and in the anthropology of everyday life in a large Arab city.

[janerawoof · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Collection of 18 fascinating vignettes of the inhabitants of a quarter [hara] in modern Cairo. Each is a parable or folktale-like short story with a central theme and often a pithy gnomic aphorism; some stories only 2 or 3 pages. The civil authority [Head of the Quarter] and spiritual leader, the Imam appear in each story and might sum up the conclusion. In "The Oven" we read of a pair of lovers from different classes--a baker and a merchant's daughter--who elope and though her father has written her off, saves him from bankruptcy. "She has returned; she needs no forgiveness", the Head tells the Imam. This was my favorite story. In "Pursuit", a wronged woman badgers the man who has given her a child out of wedlock; this one reminded me somewhat of the Biblical Unjust Judge and the Widow parable in its emphasis on persistence. Naqba, in another story, cannot lie. In "The Arrow", a man is killed and the story shows how people still cling to superstitions, in spite of the all-too-human logic of the action in front of them.In "The End of Boss Saqr" a man's first wife finds out what her dying husband had meant by whispering to her: "Over the bath."In "Tawhida", the title character always remains young in the narrator's mind although many years have passed.The book also included Mahfouz's Nobel Prize Acceptance speech and four of these stories in the original Arabic in the author's handwriting.Highly recommended, although the author's [Cairo Trilogy] might be a better introduction to his oeuvre.

[yarb_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Few of these microfictions, unpublished in Mahfouz's lifetime and recently rediscovered by a researcher, amount to wholly-realised stories. Most are simply sketches, with the most frequent trope being the beggar / madman figure whose prophecy unsurprisingly comes true. Other stock characters are the "Boss" of the titular Quarter, the vendor of sweets / pickles / bread etc., and the imam. None of these pieces will stick in the memory, but the economical prose is perfectly fine and the stories as a whole succeed in evoking their Gamaliya setting.The scant 60 or so small pages of prose are padded out with a foreword, a translator's introduction, Mahfouz's Nobel speech (not one of the best) and copies of his Arabic holograph for four of the pieces. Despite this extra material and the high production values, this is for Mahfouz completists or Cairo-lovers only.