A new battle with the Nobel laureate's family coincided with their agreement to republish his works
Naguib Mahfouz's daughter: We are not "ISIS"...and there are intellectuals "thugs" that I describe sublimely as "fatwas"
Umm Kulthum Naguib Mahfouz.
archival
Naguib Mahfouz's family was subjected to a press campaign after his death.
archival
«Fatwas» Naguib Mahfouz awaiting revision.
archival
picture
Coinciding with the 110th anniversary of the birth of the Nobel laureate, the international writer Naguib Mahfouz, a battle erupted between Mahfouz's family and Egyptian intellectuals, after a publishing house announced that it had republished his novels "after revision and revision". This paralleled a side press battle in which Umm Kulthum attacked Naguib Mahfouz, intellectuals and publishers, and described them as fatwas. The writer Youssef Al-Qaid denied that Umm Kulthum had adopted the description, but Umm Kulthum Naguib Mahfouz returned and confirmed her adoption of him, noting that her family was subjected to a cruel and unjustified attack. After her father's death, she went so far as to describe them as "ISIS".
Diwan had announced in a press statement that it had "obtained the exclusive rights to publish the complete works of the international writer Naguib Mahfouz, for a period of 15 years, starting from next May," and that "the house intends to revive Naguib Mahfouz's legacy and present his revised and revised works, with the latest Techniques of paper, digital, and audio publishing, and work to extend his intellectual impact and preserve his unique literary legacy.
The statement of the house raised a state of questioning and motivation in the press and cultural circles.
The novelist Ayman Al-Sumairi said on his Facebook page, “Does the Diwan library intend, with the words revised and revised, to introduce Naguib Mahfouz’s literature to the washing machine, to satisfy the ravages of a certain trend in society?
From my heart, I hope that my assumptions are wrong.”
The narrator Heshmat Youssef told "Emirates Al-Youm" that "the literary text of the creator is not a press report that can be revised, modified, interfered with, or deleted, as it expresses the creative state of the writer, and should not be touched, especially if the writer is global, especially if these works have passed. It has been in the hands of the people for a long time.”
For her part, the Executive Director of “Diwan” Amal Mahmoud said, in a subsequent media clarification of the statement, “What we meant by the revision was the formation of a committee of intellectuals and senior writers interested in Naguib Mahfouz’s literature to return the original version of his works, and to revise the existing copies of the modifications and errors that had affected them, censorship intervention, and access to the original text.
Poet and member of the Writers Union, Osama Al-Banna, said, "The monopoly on publishing Naguib Mahfouz's works at prices we all know means that large numbers of new generations will not read Naguib Mahfouz."
Lawyer and legal researcher, Adel Al-Aswany told «Emirates Today», "People confused them with many overlaps regarding editions, without realizing the legal backgrounds. It happened with (Hendawi), which will print copies for free after this date, and today a new agreement, but it is clear that it has a different meaning, and there is the ongoing conflict with the American University, and people often follow this news without following its details and backgrounds, which need a specialized legal to read it.
On a parallel level, Umm Kulthum Naguib Mahfouz sparked a new controversy in two successive press interviews for the Egyptian "Radio and Television" magazine and "Al-Watan", in which she described intellectuals and publishers as bullying.
Mahfouz, the daughter, told Al-Watan, "Before, I refused to deal with fatwas in publishing, which is the classy word for publishing thugs and intellectuals, from whom I faced an attack on Naguib Mahfouz's family after his death, some of whom even described us as (ISIS), although they do not They know us.
We wanted to stay away from the media and nothing more, we were seeing ourselves as the family of a famous man, not necessarily celebrities.
This was our choice, and everyone is free to choose their own path.”
The family of Naguib Mahfouz had been subjected to a press campaign following the death of their father, in which the newspapers accused his two daughters of refusing to turn the controversial novel “The Children of Our Neighborhood” into a TV series by scriptwriter Wahid Hamed for one million pounds, and his wife’s refusal to transfer the remains to the Abu al-Dahab Agency, accusations that Umm Kulthum refuted Naguib Mahfouz, many of them, in an interview with Al-Ahram on March 19, 2017, confirming that Waheed Hamed did not originally submit this request to them.
• Umm Kulthum Naguib Mahfouz sparked a new controversy in two consecutive press interviews for the Egyptian "Radio and Television" magazine and "Al-Watan", in which she attacked intellectuals and publishers.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news