Chapter published in:
Landscapes of Realism: Rethinking literary realism in comparative perspectives. Volume II: Pathways through realism
Edited by Svend Erik Larsen, Steen Bille Jørgensen and Margaret R. Higonnet
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages XXXIII] 2022
► pp. 931–953

Worlding of realism

The case of Naguib Mahfouz

| University of London
The routes of European realism into Arabic cultural and literary expressions are many. They also overlap in both the travel and arrival of this complex package of politics and aesthetics, simultaneously and randomly, through translation and adaptation. A comparative reading of Arabic print culture, cinema, storytelling and theater allows us to see the overlapping network of circulation of European realism, and how it is subject to further conceptual blending of all kinds: global with local, visual with verbal, and creative with critical. Reception is the space in which Arabic realism finds articulation; each articulation is, however, unique, responsive, as it were, to the worldview, priorities and techniques deployed. Tracing the movements and transformations of European realism through Naguib Mahfouz – centripetally into his novel and film stories and centrifugally to Egyptian cinema and criticism – it is possible to track the worlding of realism in the globalization of Mahfouz. Read outside of a linear progressive chronology that implies a cause-and-effect trajectory of worlding (i.e., that the Egyptian development is directly influenced by European exports), and against a backdrop of visualization and embodiment in Egyptian and Mexican cinemas, class-conscious discourses of Egyptian criticism, and the political allegory of his later novels, Mahfouzian literary realism is theorized as reliant on the ability of the word to release the creative potential of the human imagination to relate writing to lived experiences.
Keywords: Naguib Mahfouz, globalization, the novel, socialist realism, Marxist criticism, cinema, Chinese orientalism
Article outline
  • 1.Global reception of Mahfouzian realism
  • 2.The intercultural context of Mahfouz’s realism
  • 3.Realism in Mahfouz’s cinematic world
  • 4.The politics of realism and reception of Mahfouz’s novels
  • 5.Mahfouzian language and realist aesthetics
  • 6.The politics of reception and the worlding of realism
  • Works cited
Published online: 16 March 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/chlel.xxxiii.25ouy
References

Works cited

1.Novels by Najīb Maḥfūz (Naguib Mahfouz)

The works of Naguib Mahfouz in Arabic are available online and as complete works. Quotations are from the English translations.

1.1Historical romances

2003
 Khufu’s Wisdom. ʿAbath al-aqdār [1939], translated by Raymond T. Scott. Cairo and London: American University in Cairo Press and Eurospan 2003.Google Scholar
2003
 Rhadopis of Nubia. Rādūbīs [1943], translated by Anthony Calderbank. Cairo and London: American University in Cairo Press and Eurospan.Google Scholar
2003
 Thebes at War. Kifāh Tība [1944], translated by Humphrey Davies. Cairo and London: American University in Cairo Press and Eurospan.Google Scholar

1.2Realist novels

1966
 Midaq Alley. Zuqāq al-Midaq [1947], translated by Trevor Le Gassik. Beirut: Khayats.Google Scholar
1985
 The Beginning and the End. Bidāya wa-nihāya [1949], translated by Ramses Awad and edited by Mason Rossiter Smith. New York: Anchor Books, Doubleday.Google Scholar
1990
 Palace Walk. Cairo Trilogy vol. 1. Bayn al-Qaṣrayn [1956], translated by William M. Hutchins and Olive Kenny. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
1991
 Palace of Desire. Cairo Trilogy vol. 2. Qaṣr al-shawq [1957], translated William M. Hutchins, Lorne M. Kenny and Olive Kenny. New York: Doubleday 1991.Google Scholar
1991
 Sugar Street. Cairo Trilogy vol. 3. Al-Sukkariyya [1957], translated by William M. Hutchins and Angele Botros Samaan. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
2008
 Cairo Modern. Al-Qāhira al-jadīda [1945], translated by William M. Hutchins. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
2008
 Khan al-Khalili. Khān al-Khalīlī [1946], translated by Roger Allen. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.Google Scholar
2009
 The Mirage. Al-Sarāb [1948], translated by Nancy N. Roberts. Cairo, New York and London: American University in Cairo Press and Eurospan.Google Scholar

1.3Allegories

1981
 Children of Gebelawi. Awlād ḥāratinā [1959], translated by P. J. Stewart. London: Heinemann. Also: 1995 Children of the Alley, translated by Peter Theroux. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
1993
 The Harafish. Malḥamat al-Ḥarāfīsh [1977], translated by Catherine Cobham. London: Doubleday.Google Scholar
1995
 Arabian Nights and Days. Layālī alf Layla [1979], translated by Denys Johnson-Davies. London: Doubleday.Google Scholar

2.Film scripts for Salah Abu Seif

2.1Original screenplays

1947
 Al-Muntaqim (The Avenger).Google Scholar
1948
 Mughāmarāt ʿAntara wa ʿAbla (The adventures of Antara and Abla).Google Scholar
1953
 Rayyā wa Sakīna (named after the Egyptian Bonnie and Clyde).Google Scholar
1954
 Al-Waḥsh (The Beast).Google Scholar
1955
 Shabāb imraʾa (A Woman’s Youth). Adapted from Hollywood film, Sunset Boulevard (1950).Google Scholar
1957
 Al-Futuwwa (Gangs of Cairo).Google Scholar

2.2Adaptations

1951
 Laka yawm yā ẓālim (The Unjust Will Have His Day of Reckoning). Adapted from Émile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1868).Google Scholar
1957
 Al-Tarīq al-masdūd (Dead End) based on the novel from 1955 of the same title by Iḥsān ʿAbd al-Quddūs.Google Scholar
1959
 Anā ḥurra (I am Free), based on a novel from 1954 of the same title by Iḥsān ʿAbd al-Quddūs.Google Scholar

3.Filmography

3.1Films based on Mahfouz’s novels

1964
 Bayn al-Qaṣrayn (Palace Walk). Dir. Ḥasan al-Imām.Google Scholar
1964
 Bidāya wa-nihāya (The Beginning and the End) Dir. Salah Abu Seif.Google Scholar
1964
 Zuqāq al-Midaq. (Midaq Alley) Dir. Ḥasan al-Imām.Google Scholar
1966
 Cairo 30. (Cairo Modern) Dir. Salah Abu Seif.Google Scholar
1966
 Mirāmār. (Miramar) Dir. Kamal El Sheikh.Google Scholar
1967
 Qaṣr al-Shawq (Palace of Desire). Dir. Ḥasan al-ImāmGoogle Scholar

3.2Egyptian films

1933
 Al-Warda al-Baydāʾ (White Rose). Musical. Dir. Muḥammad Karīm’s.Google Scholar
1939
 Al-ʿAzīma (Determination). Dir. Kamāl Salīm’s.Google Scholar
1954
 Futuwwāt al-Ḥusayniyya (Strong Men of Husayniyya). Dir. Niyāzī Mustafā.Google Scholar
1955
 Darb al-Mahābīl (Mahabil Alley). Dir. Tawfīq Sāliḥ.Google Scholar

3.3Mexican films

1993
 Principio Y Fin (The Beginning and the End). Dir. Arturo Repstein.Google Scholar
1995
 El calléjon de los Milagros (The Alley of Miracles). Dir. Jorge Fons.Google Scholar

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