Mohammed Tarazi Wins 2024 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature

AUC awarded Lebanese novelist Mohammed Tarazi the 2024 Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature for his novel Mīkrūfūn kātim Ṣawt (Muted Microphone). The award ceremony, which was held at the historic Ewart Memorial Hall on AUC’s Tahrir Square Campus, celebrated Tarazi’s literary achievement alongside prominent writers and cultural figures from across Egypt.

The winning novel was chosen by the members of the judging panel and selected from six shortlisted novels. 

“The jury selected Mīkrūfūn kātim Ṣawt (Muted Microphone) for the 2024 Naguib Mahfouz Award for its deep metaphor and imagery and powerful characters as well as its smooth narrative style," said Sarah Enany, chair of the judging panel, professor at Cairo University's English Department and winner of the Banipal Prize for Literary Translation. "Although it discusses Lebanon today, it emerges from the limits of its own setting in space and time to unveil a general human reality for those of us in contemporary society who live in cities that stifle souls and kill dreams.”

At the ceremony, Mohammed Tarazi expressed his appreciation for this recognition: "Perhaps it was this silence that struck a chord with the distinguished members of the committee, who chose to grant me the highest honor a writer can aspire to — a voice. This voice came in the form of a medal bearing the name of the great writer, Naguib Mahfouz, placing me among the remarkable creators recognized for their literary excellence and unwavering stand against hatred and tyranny.”

“The jury selected Mīkrūfūn kātim Ṣawt (Muted Microphone) for the 2024 Naguib Mahfouz Award for its deep metaphor and imagery and powerful characters as well as its smooth narrative style."

The judging panel was comprised of Kay Heikkinen, formerly at the University of Chicago, and winner of the Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation; Ahmed Taibaoui, winner of the Best Arabic Novel Prize at the Sharjah International Book Fair in 2023 and the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2021; Youssef Rakha, novelist, poet and essayist; and Maysa Zaki, literary and theatre critic with over 30 years of experience in the field.

Thomas Willshire, executive director of AUC Press, acknowledged the incredible efforts of the judging panel saying: “I must thank our panel of five judges of the Mahfouz Award Committee, that despite full calendars of their own they have spent the last year reading and reviewing the 181 submissions for the prize. These came from 18 countries across the Arab world. An embarrassment of riches that makes the selection of the six titles shortlisted for the prize, let alone the determination of a single winner, an achievement worthy of this celebration.”

Perhaps it was this silence that struck a chord with the distinguished members of the committee, who chose to grant me the highest honor a writer can aspire to — a voice. This voice came in the form of a medal bearing the name of the great writer, Naguib Mahfouz, placing me among the remarkable creators recognized for their literary excellence and unwavering stand against hatred and tyranny.”

Willshire added that the award ceremony also commemorates the 113th anniversary of the birth of Naguib Mahfouz Long before winning the Nobel Prize in 1988, he was already recognized as the towering figure of Arabic literature, the author of 34 novels, more than 350 short stories, dozens of screenplays and five plays over an extensive career that paralleled Egypt's history during the 20th century. In 1985, AUC Press began translating the works of Naguib Mahfouz into English. 

AUC Press has been the originating publisher of Naguib Mahfouz’s English-language editions for more than 30 years and has also been responsible for the licensing of some 600 foreign-language editions of the Nobel laureate’s works in more than 40 languages around the world since the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. With up to 60 new publications annually and more than 800 titles in print,  AUC Press is recognized as the region’s leading English-language publisher.

The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, established in 1996, recognizes the best contemporary novel published in Arabic in the past two years. In addition to a $5,000 cash prize, the winner receives a trophy and an English translation of their work, published under the renowned AUC Press fiction imprint, Hoopoe.

The winners of the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature have included 11 women and 15 men; of these, there are 13 Egyptians, three Palestinians, two Algerians, two Lebanese, two Syrians, one Moroccan, one Iraqi, one Sudanese and one Saudi Arabian.