Naguib Mahfouz (d. 2006) is Egypt’s foremost writer. Over a career that lasted more than five decades, he wrote 34 novels, 13 short story anthologies, numerous plays and 30 screenplays. Of his many works, the most famous are The Cairo Trilogy, The Children of Gebelawi and The Thief and the Dogs. Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988, the first writer in Arabic to do so.