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Sotheby's to sell Naguib Mahfouz archives
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- Written by Arts Newsdesk
Sotheby's London is selling the archives of Nobel Prize winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz.
The auctioneer says the sale will include "a major cache" of previously unpublished manuscripts.
The archive, estimated at GBP 50,000 - GBP 70,000, will be sold in the English Literature, History, Private Press, Children's Books and Illustrations sale on 15 December 2011. "This extraordinarily rich and diverse group of manuscripts spans seven decades of the author's career, from the 1930s to his death in 2006," Sotheby's said.
Sotheby's Senior Manuscripts Specialist Gabriel Heaton said, "It is an immense honour to be offering what is to the best of our knowledge, the first manuscript material by Naguib Mahfouz to appear at public auction – much of it previously unpublished. Throughout his life, Mahfouz constantly revisited his great subject, the city of Cairo and what is perhaps most fascinating about these manuscripts, which include material from the very beginning and the end of his career, is how we can observe the style of this great writer continually evolving."
Naguib Mahfouz (نجيب محفوظ ) was born 11 December, 1911 and died 30 August, 2006. He won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature.
He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim, to explore themes of existentialism.
Naguib Mahfouz published more than 50 novels, more than 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.
