Dreams and reality

By Naguib Mahfouz

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There is no ending to dreams, no limit to what is imaginable. I have written down 150 of my own which have been published in Arabic, French and English. More are on the way. I am writing a new collection that will appear first in Nisf Al-Dunya magazine and then in a book published by Le Roche, the French publishing house that released the first part of Dreams last year. Soon AUC will issue a paperback edition of that volume.

The world of fantasy is not isolated from reality. The dreams I am now working on reflect our daily life, reflect on current political and social dilemmas. Dreams are reality freed from the boundaries daily life imposes. All dreams start from, and then build on, real life. The imaginary worlds we create conform in many ways to the world we inhabit. Yesterday I was working on a dream about Saad Zaghloul, the man who led our national struggle in the first half of the last century.

Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.