About Mohamed Tawfik in Arabic
The author’s novel “A Naughty Boy Called Antar”
was our readers club selection for January 2004.
Visit our Readers Club main page
Find more information on our
January 2004 selection: the novel, the author and his work.
M.M. Tawfik was born in
Cairo in 1956. With degrees in civil engineering (Cairo University),
international law (University of Paris) and international relations
(International Institute of Public Administration in Paris) he has led a
diversified professional life, however he maintains that his principle
vocation remains that of writer. Having lived in various countries in
Europe, Africa and the Americas and trodden life’s different walks, his
writing has managed to combine diversity in style, tone and situation
with his unique and distinctive artistic spirit.
He is a member of the Egyptian Writers Union, Pen International and the
Geneva Writers Group. He is a member of the organising committee of the
Geneva International Writers Conference and the editorial committee of
the literary magazine Offshoots.
M.M. Tawfik has published in Arabic one novel, A
Night in the Life of Abdel-Tawwab Tutu, and three volumes of
short stories, The White Butterflies ,
'Til the Break of Dawn and
Agamyste. An English translation of selected stories from all
three volumes was published in 1997 entitled
The Day the Moon Fell. A new novel
“A naughty boy called Antar” is expected to appear before the end
of 2002.
These works attest to his fresh, uncompromising art. He has been
described as rebel, explorer and creator of a dynamic kaleidoscopic
universe that is uniquely his. With tender sweeping brushstrokes he
depicts the lives, dreams and disappointments of ordinary --and not so
ordinary-- people groping for their way amid the hustle and bustle of
modern-day Cairo.
Roaming across his pages are hopeless dreamers and successful surgeons,
battered wives and mysterious genie princesses, Nintendo-playing
adventure-seeking little boys and girls, stray dogs and white
butterflies. In short, a magical molotov cocktail of fantasy and
reality, dreams and disenchantment, lust and tortured delayed
sensuality.
M.M. Tawfik considers his work to be firmly rooted in the Egyptian oral
tradition. His grandmother’s tales still reverberate. The soul, yearning
for liberation, embarks on a journey. Understanding repels certainty.
Consciousness blossoms. After all, as he asks, is there a foe deadlier
than mediocrity?
His
novel
“A naughty boy called Antar”
was our readers club selection for January
2004.
Click here for links to our readers discussion on his novel and our
special dossier on him