"When Naguib Mahfouz was a boy, he tells us, two paths lay before him. There was the path of the literature he loved to read and write. He could take that path and become a distinguished author. There was also the path of the football he loved to play and the footballers he admired. He could take that, it was said, and become a member of the Egyptian Olympic football team."
Winner of 2019 ArabLit Story Prize: ‘The Sharp Bend at Al-Bakur’
"The story suggests that the innocent dead were sacrificed for the vanity of those in power and those who seek it."
Shortlist for 2019 ArabLit Story Prize
After a good deal of debate, the judges of the 2019 ArabLit Story Prize settled on a four-story shortlist, with works by Mahmoud Hosny, Najwa Bin Shatwan, Mohamed Al-Ashry, and Samar Nour.