Mohamed Mostagab also writter Mustagab was born in 1938 in Dayrut, Assiut Governorate. He worked in several professions, gaining deep and extensive life experience, which influenced his writing and style. In the 1960s, he worked on the construction of the High Dam in Aswan and educated himself after completing his secondary school education. He then enrolled at the Institute of Fine Arts but did not complete his studies. He worked for a few months in Iraq, and after returning to Egypt, he worked at the Arabic Language Academy until his retirement in 1998.
He published three novels, six short story collections, and fourteen books, which collected most of his literary articles published in magazines and newspapers. His most famous work is "Nabsh El Ghorab fi Wahat Alarabi" in the Kuwaiti magazine Al-Arabi.
His stories have been translated into several languages, and one of his stories was adapted into a film, "The Axe in the Head."
Mostagab has received numerous awards, including the State Incentive Award in Literature in 1984, the First Class Order of Arts and Literature in 1986, the Book Fair Award for Best Short Story Collection, "The Rise and Fall of the Mostagab Family," in 1997, and the State Appreciation Award in Literature in 2006.
His first published short story, appeared in Al-Hilal magazine in August 1969. This attracted significant attention, and he subsequently published his distinguished stories in several magazines.
His first novel, "The Secret History of Numan Abdul Hafiz," was published in 1983, for which he won the State Incentive Award in 1984 and has been translated into several languages. It was published by the poet Salah Abdel Sabour as a serial in the pages of Al-Kateb magazine in 1975 and was selected as one of the top 100 Arabic novels by the Arab Writers Union. It has been translated into English by Humphrey T. Davies, and was included in Tales of Dayrut (AUC Press, 2008), the only book-length work by Mustagab available in English translation. It was also turned into a play and staged in Cairo in 2001
He had regular journalistic contributions to a number of Arab magazines and newspapers, most notably his column "The Arab Oasis" in the Kuwaiti magazine Al Arabi, which he collected in a book bearing the same name published in 1999.
He also had regular columns in the newspaper Akhbar Al Adab, which he also collected in a two-volume book bearing the same name published in 1999.
He had regular articles in a number of newspapers and magazines, most notably the Egyptian Al-Usbu', Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Sayidaty, and Al-Musawwar. He collected these articles in several books.
He died on June 26, 2005, at the age of 67, after suffering from liver failure.
