Three Novels of Ancient Egypt Khufu's Wisdom, Rhadopis of Nubia, Thebes at War Translated by Raymond Stock, Anthony Calderbank and Humphrey Davies Introduction by Nadine Gordimer "If the urge to write should ever leave me", Mahfouz said in an interview recently, "I want that day to be my last."

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 33 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays, and 30 screenplays. Of his many works, most famous is The Cairo Trilogy, consisting of Palace Walk (1956), Palace of Desire (1957), and Sugar Street (1957), which focuses on a Cairo family through three generations, from 1917 until 1952. In 1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer in Arabic to do so. He died in August 2006.