Days with Naguib Mahfouz

I was raised in the embrace of the 1919 Revolution, during its early heroism and sacrifices, and this had a great impact on my formation and my outlook on life. I am a mixture of freedom and social justice. I took more than my fair share in critical evaluation, even though my generation did not receive the criticism and attention it deserved. I have taken my share of the world and more, and I will never remain the number one writer forever. I received criticism from both sides, and there are books written to attack me. Like tons of praise, I bore tons of blame. In the chapter "Dialogues," the author published 9 dialogues with the great writer Naguib Mahfouz, conducted between 1985 and 2001, and published in Egyptian and Arab newspapers and magazines. In these, Mahfouz talked about the critics' stance towards him and his literary works, as well as about the "Harafish" meeting, his political affiliation, what changed in himself and his day before winning the Nobel, and after it. He also discussed the crisis of the novel "Children of the Alley," and Mahfouz said — 20 years after writing the novel: "The novel was confiscated due to a misunderstanding, nothing more and nothing less, and it does not deserve to be confiscated."