More than six decades ago, when Egyptians were mesmerised by the tales of Pashas and aristocrats and the on-the-side mistresses Naguib Mahfouz told another story:
The story of the ordinary hardworking Egyptian. Instead of the endless reportage in the country's literature on lavish palaces and the nobles' yachts, he chose to write about the "real" Egypt: the traditional urban poor Hara.
And when Islamist extremism seemed to be on the rise, he stuck to his liberal views. He warned of the dangers represented by the Islamist ideology.
He paid for his views dearly. He almost died in 1994 when an Islamist militant stabbed him because he was considered "blasphemous" by demagogues after he published his famous critique of all religions, Awlad Haretna.
Yesterday the Arab world lost not only a celebrated storyteller he is the first Arab to win the Nobel Prize for Literature but also a great visionary.
He supported the Middle East peace process when the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat made peace with Israel, despite the general opposition in his country and around the Arab world to the move considered by most Arabs as high treason and unprecedented betrayal of the Palestinian cause. But that was what Mahfouz was all about. And that is why he was so revered. He danced to his own tunes.
Mahfouz, born in 1911, continued until his last days to comment on political and social issues. And people trusted his vision. Nevertheless, his real legacy is the literary treasures he left us: countless breathtaking novels, short stories and commentaries, which represented universal values promoting tolerance and co-existence.
Mahfouz was "the last of the pioneers", his friend and biographer Raymond Stock said yesterday. "He was the only Egyptian who perfectly blended the East and the West." Moreover, he was a stubborn liberal who believed in his ideas and defended them. And for that he was respected.
