La identidad egipcia en la obra narrativa de Naŷīb Maḥfūẓ y Yūsuf Idrīs

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which two eminent Egyptian men of letters, Nayib Mahfuz and Yusuf Idris, tackle in their fiction the question of a national Egyptian identity. For this purpose it considers these two writers' personality and background, as well as the circunstances under which they began their literary careers and the milieux in which they have developed. It is assumed that these factors bear heavily on their peculiar ways of expressing the nature of their society. Mahfãz and Idr§s both reveal in their works a deep avareness of the reality of twentieth-century Egypt, and the successfully convey impressions on a variety of fields of life.