Mahfouz, Naguib
Mahfouz, Naguib (1911– ),Nobel Prize‐winning and prolific Egyptian novelist. Arabian Nights and Days, the 1995 English translation of his 1982 novel Layali Alf Layla (literally ‘The Nights of the Thousand Nights’), adapts The Arabian Nights from within the Islamic tradition, rather than from an orientalizing (John Barth) or a hybridizing (Salman Rushdie) perspective. It explores what happens after the happy ending, what Shahryar must do to purify himself, and how ordinary people succumb to and struggle against the power abuses and corruption of absolutism. The Café of the Emirs, rather than the Sultan's palace, is the storytelling heart of the novel. Mahfouz retells specific tales (e.g. ‘Marouf the Cobbler’, ‘The Pseudo‐Caliph’, the Jewish Doctor's tale in the Hunchback's cycle) and traces Sufi‐based spiritual...
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