Head of Egypt's Cultural Development Fund reveals latest developments in Naguib Mahfouz Museum

CAIRO – 30 August 2020: On the occasion of the death anniversary of the Nobel Prize-winning- writer Naguib Mahfouz on Aug. 30, Fathi Abdel-Wahab, head of the Cultural Development Fund, reveals the latest developments in Naguib Mahfouz Museum.

Fathy Abdel Wahab said that the fund opened Naguib Mahfouz Museum to receive visitors daily from 9 a.m.-5p.m. except on Tuesdays.

According to Abdel Wahab, the latest development taking place in the museum is the completion of the elevator that will be used to tie all the floors of the museum together.

Abdel Wahab explained that the fund also drafted a brochure of conditions to transform the third floor into a creativity center that includes book workshops, cinema workshops, and others.

He added that Egypt’s Minister of Culture Inas Abdel Dayem recommended putting the third floor of the museum on the ministry’s top priorities for a swift completion.

Also, Abdel Wahab indicated that the fund obtained approvals to finish the procedures for a second entrance to the Naguib Mahfouz Museum from Al-Azhar Street.

The museum was built in the historical building Tekeyet Abul-Dahab and consists of two floors. Construction works began in 2016.

The museum includes a seminar room, a public library, an audio-visual library and a critical one that contains important studies and research on Naguib Mahfouz's works. This is in addition to halls for medals and certificates awarded to him, his belongings, his personal papers, his books and his photos. These halls, which included a cinema hall, bore names indicative of Mahfouz's works.

The museum’s holdings were handed over to the Ministry of Culture in early 2011, and include intimate items such as two pens given to Mahfouz by his friend, the great writer Tawfiq al-Hakim, along with Mahfouz's clothes, his watch, glasses, reading lenses, beard shaving supplies, a rosary and a piece of rock from the Berlin Wall.