I Found Myself...The Last Dreams: A unique volume by the Nobel prize-winning Egyptian author, of vivid dreams and nightly wanderings through Cairo
May 2025 · Random House
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About this ebook
FROM THE NOBEL PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR – WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HISHAM MATAR
After an assassination attempt and in waning health, Naguib Mahfouz became more cautious in his twilight years. At the same time, in nightly dreams, his imagination began to roam his beloved city, Cairo, with a rare freedom.
In this collection of vivid vignettes linked together by the author’s precisely rendered nocturnal wanderings through Cairo, figures from Mahfouz’s personal life blend with his anxieties about Egypt’s political past and future.
Each dream is layered with philosophical and spiritual musings, hopes and disappointments. Over the course of the book, they build to a rich and complex picture of Mahfouz’s subconscious.
A master of both detailed realism and fabulous storytelling’ GUARDIAN
After an assassination attempt and in waning health, Naguib Mahfouz became more cautious in his twilight years. At the same time, in nightly dreams, his imagination began to roam his beloved city, Cairo, with a rare freedom.
In this collection of vivid vignettes linked together by the author’s precisely rendered nocturnal wanderings through Cairo, figures from Mahfouz’s personal life blend with his anxieties about Egypt’s political past and future.
Each dream is layered with philosophical and spiritual musings, hopes and disappointments. Over the course of the book, they build to a rich and complex picture of Mahfouz’s subconscious.
A master of both detailed realism and fabulous storytelling’ GUARDIAN
About the author
Naguib Mahfouz (Author)
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. His nearly forty novels and hundreds of short stories range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Of his many works, the 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 the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.
Hisham Matar (Introducer, Translator)
Hisham Matar was born in New York to Libyan parents, spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his life in London. His memoir The Return received a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. He is also the author of In the Country of Men, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Anatomy of a Disappearance and A Month in Siena. His most recent novel, My Friends, won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and nominated for the National Book Award. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.
Diana Matar (Photographs by)
Diana Matar is a photographer whose work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, The British Museum, Institut du Monde Arabe, and thirty other institutions. She is the recipient of a Ford Foundation Grant and the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for Fine Art and is the author of two monographs, Evidence (2014) and My America (2024), which was shortlisted for the Rencontres d'Arles Photo-text Book Award.
Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was seventeen. His nearly forty novels and hundreds of short stories range from re-imaginings of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture. Of his many works, the 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 the first writer in Arabic to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in August 2006.
Hisham Matar (Introducer, Translator)
Hisham Matar was born in New York to Libyan parents, spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his life in London. His memoir The Return received a Pulitzer Prize in 2017. He is also the author of In the Country of Men, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Anatomy of a Disappearance and A Month in Siena. His most recent novel, My Friends, won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2024, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and nominated for the National Book Award. His work has been translated into over thirty languages.
Diana Matar (Photographs by)
Diana Matar is a photographer whose work has been exhibited at Tate Modern, The British Museum, Institut du Monde Arabe, and thirty other institutions. She is the recipient of a Ford Foundation Grant and the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award for Fine Art and is the author of two monographs, Evidence (2014) and My America (2024), which was shortlisted for the Rencontres d'Arles Photo-text Book Award.
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