About

The Middle East’s leading English-language academic book publisher

The American University in Cairo Press is the Middle East’s leading English-language academic book publisher. Its mission is to accurately reflect Egypt and the Middle East to a global readership in line with the main teaching and research interests of the American University in Cairo.

Drawing on an international author and editor community, the AUC Press publishes—in both digital and print formats—reviewed scholarly books, fiction (through a separate imprint hoopoefiction.com), Arabic teaching books, Egypt-focused books, and general interest publications.

AUC Press currently produces up to 50 new books each year, and maintains a backlist of some 800 titles mainly for distribution worldwide through Ingram Content Group (North America) and Ingram Publisher Services UK (rest of world, excluding North America).

Today the AUC Press publishes books in twelve main categories:

Arabic Language Learning; Archaeology and Ancient Egypt; Architecture and the Arts; Business, Economics, and Environmental Studies; Coptic and Islamic Studies; Egypt Guidebooks; Fiction in Translation; History; Literary Criticism; Middle East Studies; Middle East Travel; and Naguib Mahfouz.

Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006)

Naguib Mahfouz was born on December 11, 1911, in the old Gamaliya quarter of Cairo. He began writing in primary school, when he was a fan of detective, historical, and adventure novels. In secondary school he moved on to the innovators of Arabic fiction—Taha Hussein, Muhammed Husayn Haykal, Ibrahim al-Mazini—who served him as models for the short story.

Mahfouz received the Egyptian State Prize twice for his writings. In 1988 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Swedish Academy of Letters, in its citation for the prize, noted that Mahfouz “through works rich in nuance—now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous—has formed an Arabic narrative art that applies to all mankind.”

He published 35 novels, over 350 short stories, 26 movie scripts, hundreds of op-ed columns for Egyptian newspapers, and seven plays over a 70-year career, from the 1930s until 2004.

In 2011, the AUC Press celebrated the centenary of the Egyptian Nobel laureate’s birth.

Since 1996 the AUC Press has presented the annual Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, a major award in support of contemporary Arabic literature in translation.

The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature

The Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature, consisting of a cash prize of US $5,000, and the translation and publication of the winning novel throughout the English-speaking world, is presented biennially on 11 December, the birthday of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, by the president of the American University in Cairo in the presence of the Egyptian minister of culture and many other prominent leaders of Egypt’s cultural life.

The award is open to contemporary novels, written and published in Arabic anywhere in the world, with a copyright date of 2022 or 2023, which have not yet been translated and published in English.

AUC Bookstores

The AUC Press operates in Cairo two bookstores—including a flagship store in Tahrir Square. Click here to browse the different locations.

They are unique for their extensive English-language selection of more than 20,000 titles, their longstanding tradition of international bookselling experience, and their professional staff.

The AUC Bookstores offer the highest quality of services to AUC students, faculty, and staff, as well as to the wider Cairo community and travelers to Egypt.

They now deliver everywhere in Egypt! To ask for a quotation on delivery fees to Cairo and other areas in Egypt, and to place your order, email: [email protected]

Browse the AUC Bookstores website and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.