Milestone·Modern
Naguib Mahfouz Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
- Date
- 13 October 1988 CE1409 AH38 years ago
- Place
- Cairo, Egypt
- People
- Naguib Mahfouz
The Swedish Academy announced on 13 October 1988 that Naguib Mahfouz had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He was the first writer in the Arabic language to receive the prize. Mahfouz wrote novels about life in Cairo, including the Cairo Trilogy. His novel Children of Gebelawi was banned from publication in Egypt for a time.
Why it matters
The prize brought wider international attention to modern Arabic fiction.