Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti
1876–1924
Biography
Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti (1876–1924) was an Egyptian writer and poet, born in the Upper Egyptian town of Manfalut, which gave him his name. His father was Egyptian and his mother was Turkish. Some Arabic sources give 1872 as his year of birth. He wrote essays, sketches and verse, and in the early twentieth century he became one of the best-known prose stylists in Egypt and across the wider Arabic-speaking world.
He had little command of French, yet he turned a great many French novels and plays into Arabic. He worked with friends who translated the texts for him, and then he reshaped them into an elegant, emotional Arabic that suited readers of his time. This method made his name widely known, and he is remembered as much for the polish of his prose as for the sources of his material. His two best-known collections, al-Nazarat (Glances) and al-Abarat (Tears), are often cited as among the most eloquent works of the modern period.
On this site, al-Nazarat (النظرات) is the book credited to him. It gathers short prose pieces and reflections in the sentimental, moralising style that made him popular, and it is a good place to meet his own voice rather than his adaptations. Readers who want to understand Arabic prose of the early twentieth century will find it useful.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
النظرات
by مصطفى لطفي المنفلوطي
Mustafa Lutfi al-Manfaluti's Glances gathers the pieces he wrote for the Cairo press in the 1910s: moral essays and short sketches on poverty, charity, love and marriage, death and the follies of the age, set down in ornate, sentimental prose that a generation of Egyptians…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.