Book review: The Quarter, by Naguib Mahfouz

As a general rule, it’s best to treat manuscripts “discovered” after the death of an author with a certain amount of scepticism. The chances of turning up an unpublished classic in this way are vanishingly slim, not least because there are very few circumstances in which an author in search of a paycheque would go to the trouble of writing a great work of literature, only to then lock it away in a cupboard and allow it to remain there gathering dust. The case of this collection of short stories by Naguib Mahfouz, however, who became the first Egyptian writer ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988, is exceptional in more ways than one.