THE ARAB CERVANTES:

First Arab Nobel winner for literature dies at 94 (AP, 8/30/06)

Naguib Mahfouz, who became the first Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novels depicting Egyptian life in his beloved corner of ancient Cairo, died Wednesday, his doctor said. He was 94.

Mahfouz's Nobel Prize brought international recognition to a man already regarded in the Middle East as one of its best writers and premier intellectuals.

The Egyptian writer, Ahdaf Souief, who knew Mahfouz well, said the writer was a "massively important influence" on Arabic literature.

He said: "He was our greatest living novelist for a very long time... Mahfouz was an innovator in the use of the Arabic language.

"He also embodied the whole development of the Arabic novel starting with historical novels in the late 1940s through realism, through experimentalism and so on."

He added: "He single-handedly went through the whole development of the Arabic novel and made innovation possible for generations of writers after him."

The Cairo Trilogy - Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street, all of which appeared in the 1950s - detailed the adventures and misadventures of a Muslim merchant family.

The books introduced a character who became an icon in Egyptian culture: Si-Sayed, the domineering father who holds his family together.

Controversy came in 1959 with the publication of the novel Children of Gebelawi.

First serialised in Egyptian newspapers, it caused an uproar and was banned by the Egyptian religious authorities on the grounds it violated Islamic rules by including characters who clearly represented God and the prophets.

But it was published in Lebanon and later translated into English.