Josephine Reed: Now, The Big Read.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs...Once more he breathed the air of freedom. But there was stifling dust in the air, almost unbearable heat, and no one was waiting for him; nothing but his blue suit and gym shoes.
As the prison gate and its unconfessable miseries receded, the world-streets belabored by the sun, careening cars, crowds of people moving or still-returned.
No one smiled or seemed happy. But who of these people could have suffered more than he had, with four years lost, taken from him by betrayal? And the hour was coming when he would confront them, when his rage would explode and burn, when those who had betrayed him would despair unto death, when treachery would pay for what it had done.
Reed: That was Ed Gero reading from The Thief and the Dogs, by Egyptian Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Welcome to The Big Read, a program created by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The largest reading program in American history, The Big Read is designed to unite communities through great literature. Here's your host, poet and former chair of the NEA, Dana Gioia.
Dana Gioia: Naguib Mahfouz is the most celebrated Arabic novelist of the 20th century. His work explores Egypt's ancient origins, as well as its contemporary landscape and culture. He wrote more than 40 volumes of fiction over the course of a long and brilliant career.
Writer Mohamed Salmawy.
Mohamed Salmawy: Mahfouz seemed to have transcended the level of being a writer into becoming the conscience of the nation. He is the father, undoubtedly the father, of the Arabic novel.
Gioia: Biographer Raymond Stock.
Raymond Stock: He was able to spontaneously and instantly create something memorable—a complete story in a sentence or three sentences—a universe in just a few strokes.
Gioia: Writer Nadine Gordimer.
Nadine Gordimer: One can put him up there, in my opinion, with Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust—a pretty high standard. But I think he needs to be read in more parts of the world because his work belongs to the world. It's not confined to a certain place and time.
Gioia: Old Cairo is a neighborhood of ancient streets flanking the Nile, filled with small shops, cafes, and mosques. It's also the birthplace of Naguib Mahfouz.
Mohamed Salmawy: Actually when people say he lived in that area, I always say that area lived in him.
Gioia: Mohamed Salmawy was a friend and colleague of Naguib Mahfouz.
Mohamed Salmawy: Mahfouz grew up in this area, Old Cairo. And he was a great walker and must have walked every single street in Cairo. And that is why he developed a lot of acquaintance with the city and also of the people on the street. He knew the little alleys, he knew the shops. And it is from these places that he drew many of his plots and stories and characters.
Raymond Stock: I think that it was because of this experience of knowing everybody that he was able to write a book like The Thief and the Dogs...
Gioia: Raymond Stock.
Raymond Stock: ... because in it you find very successful people and very humble people, desperate people, poor people, people who have been in prison.
Gioia: The Thief and the Dogs tells the story of a man filled with a sense of betrayal, despair, and murderous revenge.
Trevor Le Gassick translated the novel into English.
Trevor Le Gassick: It opens with the emergence from jail of the major figure, Said Mahran. And we learn fairly quickly that he is immediately on his way to visit with his ex-wife who has remarried in his jail absence. And he wants desperately to see his daughter who he hasn't seen since she was a baby.
Tara McKelvey: In some ways it's a classic tale of betrayal.
Gioia: Writer Tara McKelvey.
Tara McKelvey: Said is married. He really loves his wife. And then the wife ends up with someone else. She divorces him, betrays him and his heart's broken.
Gioia: While in prison for theft, Said's wife left him for Ilish Sidra—a man who had previously been an underling of Said's. Upon his release from jail after four years of imprisonment, Said Mahran goes straight to the apartment of the double-crossing Ilish Sidra and demands to see his 6-year old daughter. Anticipating Said's angry visit, a policeman is waiting for him at Ilish's home.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs..."Said, I know you. You don't want the girl. And you can't keep her, because you'll have difficulty enough finding some accommodation for yourself. But it's only fair and kind to let you see her. Bring in the girl."
Bring in her mother, you mean. How I wish our eyes could meet, so I might behold one of the secrets of hell! Oh for the ax and the sledgehammer!
Ilish went to fetch the girl. At the sound of returning footsteps Said's heart began to beat almost painfully, and as he stared at the door, he bit the inside of his lips, antici pation and tenderness stifling all his rage.
After what seemed a thousand years, the girl appeared. She looked surprised. She was wearing a smart white frock and white open slippers that showed henna-dyed toes. She gazed at him, her face dark, her black hair flowing over her forehead, while his soul devoured her. Bewildered, she looked around at all the other faces, then particularly at his, which was staring so intently. He was unable to take his eyes off her. As she felt herself being pushed toward him, she planted her feet on the carpet and leaned backward away from him. And suddenly he felt crushed by a sense of total loss.
Adrian McKinty: When he finally finds his daughter, his daughter rejects him, 'cause she doesn't know him. She's just a little girl, she doesn't really know who he is.
Gioia: Crime writer Adrian McKinty.
Adrian McKinty: His wife obviously rejects him 'cause she's found somebody else. And so he's driven by hatred and a desire for revenge against his family and against the people who informed against him and got him into jail. Everything he does from that point on, to a certain extent, is understandable because he's just suffered the ultimate humiliation—being shamed in front of his own daughter. So it's unleashing the mad dog into the streets.
Gioia: Naguib Mahfouz felt tremendous pride in his Egyptian heritage. He was deeply affected by the 1921 discovery of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamen. At the beginning of his career, Mahfouz wrote three pharaonic novels, but eventually moved from historical settings to the contemporary Cairo. His best-known work is probably The Cairo Trilogy—an epic saga that depicts several generations of a Cairene family. Mahfouz's novels chronicled many levels of society and cultural facets of 20th century Egypt.
Nadine Gordimer.
Nadine Gordimer: All through Mahfouz's 40 novels, you see him constantly pushing himself, challenging himself to meet the things that were happening around him, the enormous changes in Egypt. Somehow he was able to absorb all this and make it understandable in a wonderful way to anybody who picks up any of his books.
Gioia: Mahfouz often drew inspiration from newspaper stories and current events. In The Thief and the Dogs—first published in 1961—he based his main character on a popular and controversial Egyptian criminal named Mahmoud Suleiman.
Egyptian writer Gamal Al-Ghitany.
Gamal Al-Ghitany: It was a very famous criminal in Egypt. Every day, about Mahmoud Suleiman. Mahmoud Suleiman disappear! Mahmoud Suleiman killed one person! Who is Mahmoud Suleiman? He was a normal man and his friend take his wife. And he has a tragedy in his life and the people love him. He became not criminal, he became like hero.
Gioia: The Thief and the Dogs marked a distinct change for Mahfouz in subject matter, as well as in style. He employs several Modernist techniques for the first time in Arabic literature. Most notably, he uses stream of consciousness to illuminate the dark and vengeful inner monologues of Said Mahran.
Mohamed Salmawy.
Mohamed Salmawy: As some critics like to think, it was perhaps the beginning of the really modern novel in Arabic literature. And it was a great influence on many writers who came up after him.
Gioia: The Thief and the Dogs begins on the fourth anniversary of the 1952 revolution—a political upheaval that replaced Egypt's monarchy with a republic and ended its long, dependent relationship with England. Mahfouz had supported the original principles of the revolution, but like many, he was disenchanted with the results. The protagonist of The Thief and the Dogs feels a similar disillusionment, especially when he visits his former mentor, Rauf Ilwan, who has abandoned his passionate, revolutionary ideals for a lucrative job as a newspaper journalist.
Tara McKelvey.
Tara McKelvey: He is a newspaper columnist when we meet him, but he has a history of being a revolutionary. And he acted as a mentor to Said.
Gioia: Rauf had encouraged Said to steal from Cairo's wealthy, and Said eventually became a very talented thief.
Adrian McKinty.
Adrian McKinty: You could see him as a Marxist Robin Hood because he seems to have this code: he will only steal from the rich or he will only steal from the corrupt, and he only steals from a certain neighborhood next to the Nile—a very rich, upper-middle-class wealthy neighborhood.
Tara McKelvey: And his friend, Rauf, applauds it and says, "That's exactly what you should be doing. Because we are fighting for a better society. And sometimes thievery is needed in that process." And from that point on, their relationship is cemented. And, of course, it goes through many changes.
Gioia: One notable change is that, by the time of Said's release from jail, Rauf Ilwan has become a resident of villa number 18 in the same wealthy neighborhood that Said used to rob.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs...There was a time when I had youth, energy, and conviction too-the time when I got arms for the national cause and not for the sake of murder. On the other side of this very hill, young men, shabby, but pure in heart, used to train for battle. And their leader was the present inhabitant of villa number 18. Training himself, training others, spelling out words of wisdom. "Said Mahran," he used to say to me, "a revolver is more important than a loaf of bread. It's more important than the Sufi sessions you keep rushing off to the way your father did." One evening he asked me, "What does a man need in this country, Said?" and without waiting for an answer he said, "He needs a gun and a book: the gun will take care of the past, the book is for the future. Therefore you must train and read." I can still recall his face that night in the students' hostel, his guffaws of laughter, his words: "So you have stolen. You've actually dared to steal. Bravo! Using theft to relieve the exploiters of some of their guilt is absolutely legitimate, Said. Don't ever doubt it."
This open wasteland had borne witness to Said's own skill. Didn't it used to be said that he was Death Incarnate, that his shot never missed?
Tara McKelvey: Said is willing to do all sorts of different things—the robbing and the thieving and the thuggery that he gets involved in—in the name of a greater good.
Gioia: Tara McKelvey.
Tara McKelvey: And he's led along in this stuff by, you know, the more educated Rauf. In the end though, Said becomes so caught up in this class warfare, that other things become unimportant. He's wrapped up in both his own inner turmoil and his desire to get revenge on these people who have hurt him and sort of cloaks it in higher principle.
Gioia: Adrian McKinty.
Adrian McKinty: It doesn't seem strange to me or surprising that he becomes a thief because in a society, which is rotten from the top down, you know, it just seems a very unsubtle form of expression. Whereas the generals, the colonels, the politicians are stealing in much more subtle and elegant ways. But they're still the thieves.
Gioia: You're listening to The Big Read, from the National Endowment for the Arts. Today, we're discussing The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz.
Gioia: After Said obtains a weapon, he plans the murder of his traitorous former underling, Ilish Sidra. His plan, however, ends in disaster, as Said unwittingly murders an innocent man. Said takes refuge with a Sufi Sheikh who had been a spiritual advisor to his father.
Gamal Al-Ghitany.
Gamal Al-Ghitany: The Sheikh here is Sufi and Sufi in the novels of Mahfouz, symbol for many things—calm, rest, eternity.
Gioia: Adrian McKinty.
Adrian McKinty: He doesn't ask where Said is going, he doesn't really care what he's doing, he just sees a fellow human being who is suffering and who is in need. When he comes in he gives him food, he gives him a place to stay.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs..."I am in need of a kind word," Said pleaded.
"Do not tell lies." The Sheikh spoke gently, then bowed his head, his beard fanning out over his chest, and seemed lost in thought. [.]
Suddenly the Sheikh said, "Take a copy of the Koran and read."
A little confused, Said explained apologetically, "I just got out of jail today, and I have not performed the prayer ablutions."
"Wash yourself now and read."
"My own daughter has rejected me. She was scared of me, as if I was the devil. And before that her mother was unfaithful to me."
"Wash and read," replied the Sheikh gently.
"She committed adultery with one of my men, a layabout, a mere pupil of mine, utterly servile. She applied for divorce on grounds of my imprisonment and went and married him."
"Wash and read."
"And he took everything I owned, the money and the jewelry. He's a big man now, and all the local crooks have become followers and cronies of his." [...]
"Wash and read the verses."
Gioia: While all Muslims believe that they will unite with God after death, Sufi Muslims believe it is possible to experience this union while living. They are mystics whose primary aim is to let go of the self through study and prayer. Adrian McKinty.
Adrian McKinty: Sufism is a very, very interesting strain in this book. It's one that really can't be ignored because it's so important to the text. And the Sheikh is the classic Sufi saint. He's someone who will project love for his fellow man and he will do all he can to help someone in need. Even a criminal. Even a criminal hunted by dogs. Even a criminal on the verge of death.
Gioia: The Sheikh offers shelter and solace to Said, and he represents one possible escape from Said's path towards self-destruction—a spiritual escape. But Said is unable to suppress his rage long enough to hear the Sheilkh's wisdom. Their conversations often sound like two people speaking different languages, unable to understand each other.
Trevor Le Gassick.
Trevor Le Gassick: Said is engrossed in self, and the Sheikh and the devotees are engrossed in attempting to come close to God and to deny themselves in this process, to lose their consciousness. So it's a total inability to communicate between him and the Sheikh.
Gioia: In 1988, Arabic literature gained much credibility in the eyes of the world when Naguib Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Late in his life, he was visited by another Nobel laureate, Nadine Gordimer, who traveled to Egypt from her native South Africa in order to meet Mahfouz. Not only does Gordimer deeply admire his work, she also feels a special kinship in that they are both novelists from countries that have seen great political and social unrest.
Nadine Gordimer: We shared living through situations of tremendous historic change and conflict, living through colonialism and the end of it, and seeing the problems that come that you don't think about during the struggle for independence from a colonial power, the problems that come afterwards.
Gioia: Mohamed Salmawy flew to Sweden to accept the award on behalf of Mahfouz, who was too frail to travel.
Mohamed Salmawy: For the Arabs and for the Egyptians it was a source of great pride. They all regarded Mahfouz as the greatest living novelist, and to find that the rest of the world looks at him in the same manner and recognizes his greatness, reflected on the national pride of Arabs, on their literary value, and it even increased the place of Mahfouz as the conscience of the nation.
Gioia: The Nobel Prize raised Mahfouz's stature worldwide, but that broad recognition also put him in grave danger. In 1994, Mahfouz was the target of an Islamic extremist who tried to assassinate him for a novel he'd written 35 years earlier. The book had originally been banned in Egypt following opposition from some religious leaders. The attacker stabbed Mahfouz in the neck, causing serious nerve damage that left him unable to write for nearly a year.
Mohamed Salmawy.
Mohamed Salmawy: Actually I saw this great man try to learn all over again how to write like a small child, unable to use his hand very well but persistent, without complaining, without grumbling. And I had the fortune or misfortune to meet the young man who actually stabbed him. I sought to see him because I wanted to ask him why he did that. And he said, "Because the leader of our group said that Mahfouz was an infidel." And I asked him another question, this young man. I said, "Have you read the novel?" And he said, "No."
Gioia: Later in the novel, Said's rage leads him to make another terrible mistake. In trying to murder his former mentor, Rauf Ilwan, his bullet again goes astray and takes the life of a second innocent man. At this point, Said is hiding out in the apartment of a woman named Nur, a forlorn but virtuous prostitute who has always loved Said.
Trevor Le Gassick: She clearly has an entirely non-Islamic and immoral lifestyle and behavior. But on the other hand, she is the embodiment of continuing love and adherence to Said himself. She is the only person whom he can trust and rely upon. And essentially, although a fallen woman, she represents virtue.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs...Nur came in smiling, carrying a big parcel. She kissed him and said, "Let's have a feast! I've brought home a restaurant, a delicatessen, and a patisserie all in one!"
"You've been drinking," he said as he kissed her.
"I have to; it's part of my job. I'll take a bath, then come back. Here are the papers for you."
His eyes followed her as she left, then he buried himself in the newspapers, both morning and evening. There was nothing that was news to him, but there was clearly enormous interest in both the crime and its perpetrator, far more than he'd expected. [.]
He was the very center of the news, the man of the hour, and the thought filled him with both apprehension and pride, conflicting emotions that were so intense they almost tore him apart. Meanwhile, so many other thoughts and ideas crowded in confusion into his mind that a kind of intoxication seemed to engulf him. He felt sure he was about to do something truly extraordinary, even miraculous; and he wished he could somehow communicate with all the people outside, to tell them what was making him-there all alone in the silence-burst with emotion, to convince them that he'd win in the end, even if only after death. [.]
By the time Nur emerged from the bathroom he felt calmer. [.]
She'd spent a lot of money. As he sat by her side on a sofa, facing the food-covered table, his mouth watered, and to show his pleasure he stroked her moist hair and murmured, "You know, there aren't many women like you."
Tara McKelvey: Nur is the woman who has always loved Said.
Gioia: Tara McKelvey.
Tara McKelvey: . She provides everything in some ways, because she gives him unconditional love. But Said's kind of disgusted with her in the beginning, maybe partly because she offers such unqualified love. But she's patient and she's adoring. And over time, he realizes that she does love him and that there's a kind of purity to that. And he wants very much to appreciate it and to be able to let that in. But since he's been through so much, it's difficult to do that.
Gioia: Once again, Said is offered a way out—first through spiritual surrender, and then through Nur's love—but his anger leaves him unable to reciprocate. When Nur mysteriously disappears, Said returns to the Sheikh for refuge. But he and his crimes are now so well known, there is no safe place for Said.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs...In the background the prayer leader's chant and the congregation's sighs wailed on. When would peace come, when his time had passed in futility, when he had failed and fate was on his trail? But that revolver of his lying ready in his pocket, that was something at least. It could still triumph over betrayal and corruption. For the first time the thief would give chase to the dogs.
Suddenly from beneath the window outside he heard an angry voice explode and a conversation:
"What a mess! Why, the whole quarter is blocked off!"
"It's worse than during the war!"
"That Said Mahran... !"
Said tensed, electrified, gripping the revolver so tightly that every muscle in his body strained. He stared in every direction. The area was crowded with people and was no doubt full of eager detectives. I mustn't let things get ahead of me. They must now be examining the uniform and the dogs will be there too. And meanwhile here I am, exposed. The desert road isn't safe, but the Valley of Death itself is only a few steps away. I can fight them there to the death.
Mohamed Salmawy: I think we have all come to see Old Cairo in a different light after Mahfouz has written about it.
Gioia: Mohamed Salmawy.
Mohamed Salmawy: I've been told many times by foreign ambassadors that before coming to Egypt they have learned more about Egypt and its people and its history through the novels of Mahfouz than through political and history books that they've read. Because he represents this human aspect, which you don't find in political writing, these characters that are very Egyptian and that make Egypt what it is.
Raymond Stock: I think he represents the best of what exists here. And he also doesn't hesitate to show you the worst, not only here in Egypt, but in humanity.
Gioia: Raymond Stock.
Raymond Stock: His stories are universal but they have a very Egyptian skin. They are great works of art and we should want to know what's out there in the rest of the world as Americans. Because it's what makes us all human.
Nadine Gordimer: He was a great humanist and this comes out in his work.
Gioia: Nadine Gordimer.
Nadine Gordimer: His descriptions of conflict and the kinds of resolutions that can come about and the people come up with, they transcend religious differences, political faiths. He simply has a vision of the needs of humankind, of what we mysterious creatures are.
Gioia: Although The Thief and Dogs is usually considered a crime novel, it is also a deft psychological portrait of a character blinded by fury, and the shifting social and political forces that contribute to his downfall.
Adrian McKinty.
Adrian McKinty: It's a very moral book because it shows you a man making all the wrong decisions at every single point. And revenge doesn't get him anywhere. It just closes the circle tighter around him.
Ed Gero reads from The Thief and the Dogs...What a lot of graves there are, laid out as far as the eye can see. Their headstones are like hands raised in surrender, though they are beyond being threatened by anything. A city of silence and truth, where success and failure, murderer and victim, come together, where thieves and policemen lie side by side in peace for the first and last time.
Gioia: Thanks for joining The Big Read. This program was created by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It was written and produced by Molly Murphy and Dan Stone. Post-production by Molly Murphy. Readings from The Thief and the Dogs were by Ed Gero. Excerpts from Ancient Egypt and Mystical Legacies performed by A.J. Racy. All solo oud selections performed by H. Aram Gulezyuan, from The Oud, used with permission of Lyrichord Discs, Inc. Field recordings from Egypt, including the Qur'an recitation, used with permission of Multicultural Media. Sound effects by POP Sound in Santa Monica, California. Research assistants, Adam Kampe and Pepper Smith. Administrative assistants, Liz Mehaffey, Erika Koss. Special thanks to Virginia Danielson, Homa Rastegar, Nick Fritsch, John Ragheb, Anne Rasmussen, and to our contributors: Trevor Le Gassick, Gamal al-Ghitani, Nadine Gordimer, Tara McKelvey, Adrian McKinty, Mohamed Salmawy, and Raymond Stock.
For the National Endowment for the Arts, I'm Dana Gioia.
Reed: For more information about The Big Read, go to www.NEABigRead.org.
