CAIRO, 19 July 2006 — Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz was rushed to hospital on Sunday after he began to bleed from his head following a fall near his house on Nile Street in Cairo’s Giza area, the Ashraq Al-Awsat newspaper reported yesterday.
The 96-year old Egyptian novelist was taking a midnight-stroll when he stumbled and fell on a sidewalk causing a deep head wound. The writer was immediately taken to the Al-Ajouza hospital where he received five stitches.
Although Mahfouz’s condition is said to be stable, he is presently being kept at the hospital to monitor his blood pressure and sugar levels.
Mahfouz, who wrote realistic novels and short stories including Khan Al-Khalili, The Trilogy and Myramar; won a Nobel Prize for literature in 1988.
He was born in Dec. 1911 in the old quarter of Cairo and in the 1930s undertook a degree in philosophy at the College of Literature at Cairo University.
