The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 had a strong effect on Mahfouz, although he was at the time only seven years old. He stated that 'You would never have thought that an artist would emerge from that family.' In an interview, he elaborated on the stern religious climate at home during his childhood. The Mahfouz family were devout Muslims and Mahfouz had a strict Islamic upbringing. Mahfouz's mother, Fatimah, was the daughter of Mustafa Qasheesha, an Al-Azhar sheikh, and although illiterate herself, took the boy Mahfouz on numerous excursions to cultural locations such as the Egyptian Museum and the Pyramids. His father, Abdel-Aziz Ibrahim, whom Mahfouz described as having been 'old-fashioned', was a civil servant, and Mahfouz eventually followed in his footsteps in 1934. (Experientially, he grew up an 'only child.') The family lived in two popular districts of Cairo: first, in the Bayt al-Qadi neighborhood in the Gamaleya quarter in the old city, from where they moved in 1924 to Abbaseya, then a new Cairo suburb north of the old city, locations that would provide the backdrop for many of Mahfouz's later writings. Mahfouz was the seventh and the youngest child, with four brothers and two sisters, all of them much older than him. The first part of his compound given name was chosen in appreciation of the well-known obstetrician, Naguib Pasha Mahfouz, who oversaw his difficult birth. Mahfouz was born in a lower middle-class Muslim Egyptian family in Old Cairo in 1911. While Mahfouz's literature is classified as realist literature, existential themes appear in it. Many of Mahfouz's works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films no Arab writer exceeds Mahfouz in number of works that have been adapted for cinema and television. His most famous works include The Cairo Trilogy and Children of Gebelawi.

All of his novels take place in Egypt, and always mentions the lane, which equals the world. He published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 screenplays, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004.

He is the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mahfouz is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers in the Arabic literature, along with Taha Hussein, to explore themes of existentialism. Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha ( Egyptian Arabic: نجيب محفوظ عبد العزيز ابراهيم احمد الباشا, IPA: 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature.

الحرافيش by Naguib Mahfouz