ليلة سفر

Mohamed Nagy is an award-winning Egyptian writer and novelist, who is the author of several well-known novels, including "The Mandarin", "The Morning Song" and "Travel Night". His latest book, Prayer of Oblivion, was published in 2011 and deals with his personal battle with cancer.

Mohamed Nagy was born in 1947 in the city of Samanoud, Minya Governorate. As a young man, Naji began writing poems, many of which were published in Arabic magazines. He received his undergraduate degree from the College of Arts and after a short time served in the army from 1969 to 1974.

Over the course of his life, Nagoi's artistic style has diversified, from writing poems to writing novels. However, his works share the common theme of being about human experience and connecting with nature. His works have at times taken on a political undertone—most famously his 2008 novel Al-Affendi, for example, it was “a critique of the middle class obsessed with chasing financial and personal gain at the expense of the nation and society.” Yet, even with this story, Naji resisted the temptation to produce works Purely political, with one critic noting that: “On the surface, Mehmet Nagy Effendi’s book looks like another of those books filled with rage about the corruption that is eating away at contemporary Egypt from Egypt. From the inside out… Nagy uses the now vulgar mold of the young Egyptian who makes his way up using unethical shortcuts and sleight of hand, and flips it over her head by writing something akin to a modern fairy tale." In his works Nagy shows a particular affinity for Alexandria, with one author noting how he and other "primitive modernists" such as Mahmoud Said used Alexandria, "those most mixed cities", as a model for what constitutes "Egyptianism". To date, Naji is still widely regarded as one of the most influential writers ever from the Arab region.