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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 December 1999 Issue No. 460 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 16 - 22 December 1999 Issue No. 460
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Debate Focus Profile Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters
NECESSARY NARRATIONS: Last Sunday, hours after this year's Nobel Literature Laureate Gunter Grass spoke at the Swedish Academy, Naguib Mahfouz, the 1988 laureate, celebrated his 88th birthday with friends in Cairo. In Stockholm, Grass spoke of literature as "the art of lying with truth" and emphasised the importance of narrators who master the art of whispering in the dark, imbuing light's shadow with drama. Last Tuesday, speaking to the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat, Grass thanked Mahfouz for initiating him to Arabic literature, and bemoaned the dearth of German translations of Arabic fiction. For six decades, Mahfouz has enriched Arab culture with his novels, which have travelled across so many borders. Modern Arabic literature will be permanently indebted to him. 
