He is the only Egyptian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mahfouz is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers in Arabic literature, along with Taha Hussein, to explore themes of existentialism. Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha ( 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.
