‎"‎Naguib Mahfouz ‎(‎1911‎-2006‎)‎ is the only Arab writer to have been awarded the Nobel prize for literature‎.‎ The author of thirty‎-five novels‎,‎ fifteen collections of short stories‎,‎ twenty‎-five film screenplays‎,‎ numerous critical works‎,‎ and in his later years over five hundred short fictions based on his dreams ‎(‎partly published as The Dreams and Dreams of Departure by the AUC Press in 2004 and 2007‎)‎‎,‎ he has been hugely influential on several generations of Arab writers‎,‎ and his books are now read in more than forty languages around the world‎.‎‎"‎ ‎"‎In this first biography of Naguib Mahfouz in English‎,‎ Rasheed El‎-Enany looks at the life of the man and the work of the writer‎,‎ and assesses the oeuvre and legacy of a towering figure in the Egyptian and Arab literary world who was able to reach far beyond his own linguistic and cultural boundaries to an admiring readership across the globe‎.‎‎"‎