나집 마흐푸즈의 문학과 정치

Naguib Mahfouz's Literature and Politics - with Special Reference to Mirrors

The paper deals with the political contents in Naguib Mahfouz's novel, especially in Mirrors. Generally, a literary work cannot be totally free from political elements, since the author is a political being in the first place, who observes the human in the social context which the political motives rule. Moreover, Mahfouz was known for the strong commitment to social and political affairs in both domestic Egypt and Arab regional arenas. The paper analyses Mahfouzian way of political activity from three viewpoints; his relationship with the Wafd Party, Abdel Nasser and military regime, and the Muslim Brothers. In the course of narrating Mirrors Mahfouz allocated wide textual space to these subjects. What I found through the study is that Mahfouz's political beliefs consist in anti-imperialism, Egyptian nationalism, secularism, liberalism, and moderate socialism. With regard to the fictional form he made use of it as strategy to speak more freely. Although Mirrors was understood as semi-autobiography of the author and it would be easily recognized by the readers that some of the characters represented real people, he could show up the impressions he had got about them, with whom he had disagreed and conflicted.