Description
By (author) Mahfouz Naguib
Short /annotation:
In On Literature and Philosophy we find all the nuances of Mahfouz” thoughts concern ing Islam, tradition and faith as he engages with modernity and the secular influences of the West.
:
Winner of the Nobel Prize in 1988, Mahfouz”s novels brought Arabic literature to an international readership. Far fewer people, however, know his non-fiction works – a gap that this book will fill. Bringing together Mahfouz”s early non-fiction writings (mostly penned during the 1930s) which have never before been available in English, this volume offers a rare glimpse into the early development of the renowned author. In a series of essays Mahfouz discusses the origins of philosophy, its development and contributions to the history of thought. He also presents a series of essays on literature, discussing European writers, such as Anton Chekov, as well as some of his own Arab contemporaries, for example Taha Hussein. Beyond this he explores some important, contemporary issues of the day: science and modernity, the growing movement for women”s rights in the Arab world, and emerging ideologies, such as socialism. Together, these essays give us a clear picture of the changing landscape of Egypt during the 1930s, but also explains how Mahfouz”s views and ideas came to shape the nature of his literary output. In On Literature and Philosophy we find all the nuances of Mahfouz” thoughts concern ing Islam, tradition and faith as he engages with modernity and the secular influences of the West.
Table of contents:
Contents
Introduction
Translator”s Preface
The Demise of old beliefs and the Emergence of New ones
Women and Public Office
The Development of Philosophy in the Pre-Socratic Era
The Philosophy of Socrates
Plato and his Philosophy
Anton Chekhov (The Russian author)
Three of our Writers
Love and the Sexual impulse
Philosophy according to the Philosophers
What is the Meaning of Philosophy?
Psychology: its Trends and Methods, ancient and Modern
Animal Life and Psychology
The Senses and Sensory Perception
Consciousness
Theories of the Mind
Language
Art and Culture
I have Read (Part 1)
I have Read (Part 2)
Of art and History
Concerning the book Artistic Imagery in the Qur”an
Review quote:
”At this time in the 21st century when reactionary and fundamentalist religious currents are forcefully asserting themselves wherever one looks, it is wonderful to read these essays on art and culture, on love, on democracy, on Umm Kulthum, on Philosophy, on psychology, written when the Arab world”s only Nobel Laureate in Literature was a young man, and showing that the humanity and depth of his literary oeuvre was part and parcel of his tolerant, open-minded and secularist world view.”- Margaret Obank, Banipal
As a citizen, Naguib Mahfouz sees civility and the continuity of a transnational, abiding, Egyptian personality in his work as perhaps surviving the debilitating processes of conflict and historical degeneration which he, more than anyone else I have read, has so powerfully depicted.Edward Said”
One of the greatest creative talents in the realm of the novel in the world.Nadine Gordimer”
“These essays . . . give fascinating context to a great novelist”s oeuvre, while also shedding light on the interests of literate Egyptians in the early 1930s.”Marcia Lynx Qualey, Qantara
“Mahfouz has been associated in the western imagination as his country”s great cosmopolitan secularist, a quiet critic of patriarchy and a reasoned voice against the gathering forces of Islamist revivalism. . . . Western readers have historically only had the novels to go by, in situating Mahfouz in the context of Egypt”s mid-century transformations
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