“The Quarter” is perhaps what every scholar of a deceased author dreams of finding: something new and unseen in a landscape that had previously seemed finite, insurmountably bordered by birth and death.
For Egyptian journalist Mohamed Shoair, that dream became reality in 2018, some 12 years after the death of his Nobel Prize-winning compatriot, Naguib Mahfouz. While researching a book about Mahfouz’s controversial novel “Children of the Alley,” Shoair learned of a manuscript, discovered in a drawer, with a note attached to it: “To be published in 1994.”
That manuscript is what publishing house Saqi Books has recently released under the title “The Quarter.” In less than 80 pages, the collection comprises 18 previously unread short stories by the writer perhaps best-known for “The Cairo Trilogy” - a three volume, cross generational family saga that runs to 1,500 pages.
In translator Roger Allen’s introduction to “The Quarter,” which is longer than any of the stories in the volume, he points out the significance of the year in which Mahfouz had anticipated its publication.
On Oct. 13, 1994, the 10th anniversary of the announcement of his Nobel Prize win, the author was stabbed in the neck outside his flat in a Cairo suburb. The writer survived the assassination attempt but it left his writing hand impaired, and, as Allen put is, “the mention of 1994 inevitably raises questions about the circumstances of surrounding the composition of these 18 narratives.”
The stories themselves are all set in an unnamed neighborhood, which features a fort (where demons and jinns live), a cellar (where the destitute take shelter) and assorted streets, shops and characters - including recurring character like the head of the quarter and the mosque imam.
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Some stories, such as “Pursuit” and “Son of the Quarter,” show the corrupt, immoral and dishonest being held to account. Others have an almost magical realist quality to them, such as “Your Lot in Life,” in which an outbreak of seemingly contagious crying afflicts the quarter. Others still, like “Bad Luck,” demonstrate the unlikely solace people can provide each other.
“The Arrow,” the first of two stories in the collection written in the first person, speaks to a society bowed under corruption - “Every day we simply gave up, letting the tide sweep us away” - whose glazed-over eyes begin to twitch following the mysterious assassination (by an arrow) of the not-well-liked boss Zain al-Barak, on market day.
As translated by Allen, Mahfouz’s language in this collection is sparing, foregoing lengthy descriptions of locations or characters and moving directly to the bare bones of each story. At times, the reader may feel short-changed, yet somehow, despite their apparent simplicity, many of the stories merit a second and third glace.
As mentioned, the volume is slim. Saqi Books have filled it out by adding to the 80-page collection a foreword by Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, Allen’s relatively lengthy introduction, the transcript of Mahfouz’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech and prints of a selection of the volume’s stories in the author’s own handwriting. One can’t help but ponder if all this is an effort to justify the book’s hardback cover, which a posthumous collection by the Arab world’s most celebrated writer almost certainly demands and very likely deserves.
Naguib Mahfouz’s “The Quarter” is published by Saqi Books.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
