A four-volume set of articles and essays spanning the career of a prolific Egyptian writer.

This four-volume box set collects newspaper articles and earlier essays of influential Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. Each volume is introduced by Professor Rasheed El-Enany, an expert scholar in Mahfouz studies. Volume I compiles Mahfouz’s early non-fiction writings—mostly from the 1930s—that offer a rare glimpse into the development of this renowned author. Volume II is a collection of essays Mahfouz published from 1971 to 1981 in the Al-Ahram newspaper where he had taken up an appointment as a member of the editorial staff after retiring from his job as a civil servant. Volume III consists of newspaper articles published between 1982 and 1988, coinciding with the early years of Hosni Mubarak’s presidency, described by Mahfouz as an unhurried democracy. Volume IV brings together Mahfouz’s articles written from 1989 through the knife attack in October 1994 that almost ended his life.