I know that many of us if not all of us at one point in our life read something written by Naguib Mahfoud. This great writer with style and imagination larger than the Nile itself left week ago or so. Allis wal kilaab, Al qaahiraa al jadidah, kgan al khalili, Zeqaq al medaq, Assaraab, Miramar and Tartara fawqa annil, these were some of my favorites books during teen years. Thanks to moul ezzarria frass Ederb who rented them to us for rial or jouje derial if we promise to bring them back in two days, we dived and lived great moments with characters still alive in our memory today. Mahfoud was good in making the good characters in his writing very good you want to meet them or become one of them, and was also good in making the bad ones so evil you want then so dead and hated them. he made us smell Cairo and hear the Adaan from its mosques. He made us taste the foul medammes even though we had no idea what it looked like. many of us walked in the streets of our douars looking for Hamidah, the beautiful girl in the Zouqaq Al Midaq story. no one cares she was poor any more, we just want a girlfriend like her, and we dread at the same time to be Abbass, her lover, killed by the occupation. Mahfoud was that good in his writing, he’ll depress you and make you smile on the same page, dress you like a king or starve you on the next. Tarnished, as you know, for his stand on the Camp David accord, he never seem to recover. He lost his place amongst Arabs intellectuals as one standing against the occupation, but remained nonetheless, a great writer who left us with real wealth. for those who can't read arabic, many of his books are available in French and English. worth reading, money back guarantee.(tu) May Allah yerahmou.//en.yabiladi.com/topics/naguib-mahfoud-44-1333830-1333830.html#msg-1333830 Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:47:32 +0200 Phorum 5.2.15