Naguib Mahfouz

Despite his humble origins, Othman Bayumi dreams of holding the position of Director General of the governmental department where he works as an archives clerk, an impossible dream that supercedes all other interests or people in his life

The Beggar is a 1965 novella by Naguib Mahfouz about the failure to find meaning in existence. It is set in post-revolutionary Cairo during the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser.

The Journey of Ibn Fattouma is an intermittently provocable fable written and published by Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz in 1983. It was translated from Arabic into English in 1992 by Denys Johnson-Davies and published by Doubleday.