Joy and pain

By Naguib Mahfouz

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Having discussed moments of happiness in my life, it is time to turn to the darker side. My first encounter with sadness was the death of Saad Zaghlul, leader of the 1919 Revolution, whose return from exile, I think I have said, constituted my first experience of happiness. My joys begin with Saad, likewise my pains.

There are so many moments of sadness it is hard to think of them all. There was the death of my mother, which affected me deeply even though I was over 50 years old when it happened. There was the defeat of 1967, a terrible blow. I was also deeply distressed by the death of Nahhas Pasha, Saad's successor, who had retired from public life years before. Yet his memory was alive in our hearts, and huge numbers of people went out to bid him farewell. I was affected in a different way by the death of Anwar Sadat, since grief, on this occasion, was mingled with shock.

Nor can I talk of sadness without stopping at the death of Umm Kulthoum and that of Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, two musical geniuses who, perhaps to a greater extent than any others, gave not only me, but the whole of Egypt, delight.

Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.