Turkish-British writer Elif Shafak never read Naguib Mahfouz's works until she joined university but after she could lay her hands on a book by the Nobel Laureate, she says he showed her the extraordinary within the ordinary, the invisible within the visible, and the many layers underneath the surface.
The book was "Midaq Alley", sold to her by the grumpy owner of a second-hand bookshop in Istanbul.
In fact, till then, Shafak had no idea of who Mahfouz was.
The bookshop owner, whom she describes as a sour-tempered, middle-aged man with thick glasses and a haircut that had never been popular in any era, would often pick a customer randomly and quiz him or her on their knowledge of literature, history, science or philosophy.
He refused to sell books to customers who failed his tests, says the author whose "10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World" was shortlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize.
One day, the man asked Shafak whether she has read Mahfouz.
"I froze. I had no idea who he was talking about. Slowly, I shook my head. The bookseller said nothing, though his disappointment was visible," she says, adding he grabbed a book from the shelf behind him and pushed it into her hands saying loud and clear: "Read him!"
Shafak started reading "Midaq Alley" about two months later and found inside a rich world that was at once familiar and magical, well-founded and elusive.
The stories of the people of the alley - families, street vendors, poets, matchmakers, barbers, beggars and others - were so deftly told that I felt as though I knew them, each as the individuals they are, says the author of novels like The Bastard of Istanbul, The Forty Rules of Love, and Three Daughters of Eve.
Istanbul, too, was full of such streets and neighbourhoods unable to keep up with the bewildering changes surrounding them, and it remained both isolated and central, both inside the city and on its periphery, she says.
By delving into this world with a sharp mind and compassionate heart, Mahfouz had shown me the extraordinary within the ordinary, the invisible within the visible, and the many layers underneath the surface. His writing, just like Cairo itself, pulsed with life and a quiet strength, Shafak writes in the foreword to the Egyptian Nobel Laureate's new book The Quarter.
Mahfouz's Cairo was a fluid world, she says, adding nothing seemed permanently settled; nothing felt solid. As a nomad I was familiar with that feeling, and suddenly I found myself looking for more Mahfouz books to read.
Shafak rues that Mahfouz was not well translated into other languages in the region for a long time. It was only after he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988 - the first author writing in Arabic to do so - that more of his oeuvre crossed national and ethnic borders.
It troubled me back then, and still does, that in the Middle East we do not follow each other's writers and poets as well as we should, she says.
The Quarter is a collection of Mahfouz's stories including 18 never-published ones found recently among his old papers and was out on his birthday on December 11.
The stories are resplendent with Mahfouz's delicate and poignant observations of everyday happenings and take the reader deep into the beating heart of Cairo.
They came to light in September 2018 when Egyptian academic Mohamed Shoair stumbled across a handwritten manuscript of 50 stories by Mahfouz with the attached label: For publishing 1994.' Eighteen of these stories have never been published before and will appear in the collection titled The Quarter, brought out by Pan Macmillan.
Mahfouz was born in Cairo in 1911 and began writing when he was 17. A student of philosophy and an avid reader, his works range from reimagining of ancient myths to subtle commentaries on contemporary Egyptian politics and culture.
Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 34 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays and 30 screenplays.
1994 was a very difficult year for Mahfouz. The publication of The Satanic Verses brought with it unwanted attention from Islamic extremists, who despite police protection, succeeded in stabbing the 82-year-old novelist in the neck outside his home in Cairo.
Mahfouz survived, but the nerves in his right arm were permanently damaged and he could no longer write for more than a few minutes a day.
As a result, he dictated most of his stories. For the last decade of Mahfouz's life most of his work were short narratives, such as Echo of An Autobiography and Dreams.
Mahfouz's most famous works in English are The Cairo Trilogy, The Children of Gebelawi, The Thief and the Dogs and Autumn Quail. He died in August 2006.
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