Rare essays by perhaps the greatest modern Arabic writer, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, on a defining period of 20th-century Egyptian and Middle-Eastern history.

In 1971, Naguib Mahfouz who would become one of the greatest literary figures in the Arab world was just beginning a new job on the editorial staff of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram. Elsewhere in Cairo, Anwar el-Sadat was just beginning his hugely transformative Egyptian presidency, which would span eleven years. This volume of Mahfouz s essays and articles written between 1974 and 1981 serves as a portrait of a volatile period in Egypt s history which began with the Corrective Revolution and the Yom Kippur War with Israel, and ended with Sadat s assassination by Islamic extremists.

These essays were all published in the state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper, and the tension between an author who rails against censorship, yet is bound within its confines, runs through the collection. Nonetheless, Mahfouz s own thoughts are unmistakably present: we gain his insight into diverse political topics, such as socio-economic class, democracy and dictatorship, Islam and extremism, topics which remain highly pertinent across the world today.

A vital accompaniment to his literature, these collected essays are contemporaneous with Mahfouz s famed fictional works such as Karnak Caf , The Harafish and Arabian Nights and Days.