by Hisham Matar
First published 2025
Naguib Mahfouz moves carefully through his final years. His health fails. An assassin tried to kill him. His body grew weak, but his mind found new paths. Each night, sleep brings him back to Cairo. In dreams, he walks streets he knows by heart. The city opens to him completely. People from his real life appear alongside strangers. His fears about Egypt's politics mix with memories. Each dream carries questions about faith and meaning. Hope fights with disappointment in every scene. The dreams pile up like layers of paint. Together, they reveal what lives deep in his mind. His imagination roams free while his body stays trapped.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, biographical-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Cairo, Egypt
Period: Final Years
160 pages · Hardcover · Viking