V. N. KIRPICHENKO Doctor of Philology Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences Naguib Mahfouz modern Egyptian fiction, Keywords: "Dreams of the Healing Period". "Echoes of Autobiography", surrealism, Sufism Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), an Egyptian novelist and Nobel Prize winner (1988), wrote his last book "Dreams of the Healing Period" (Ahlam Fatrat al - naqaha, 2005) in a hospital shortly before his death. So the first question that comes up when reading a book is about its title. What kind of" healing " can a person talk about in the ninety-fifth year of life, who has almost lost his hearing and vision, has poor control of his right hand (in 1994, a young religious fanatic stabbed Mahfouz in the neck, the writer's right hand remained paralyzed for a long time) and hardly hopes to leave the hospital? Obviously, the author did not mean the restoration of physical strength - they were clearly fading, but put a different, metaphorical meaning in the word "healing". The book consists of 146 small texts, ranging from a page to several paragraphs. As they were written, individual "dreams"were published in the journal Nisf addunya ("Half the World"). The artist Muhammad Hogga was inspired by these "dreams" to create paintings that were later presented at a special exhibition: 96 oil paintings in the manner of various avant-garde and modernist schools, mostly surreal. One of Mahfouz's close friends, Zaki Salim, who considers the writer to be his teacher, saw Sufi content in many of his dreams and interpreted them from this point of view. We will try to trace how and to what extent the "Dreams of the healing Period" are connected with real reality, with surrealism and Sufism. Naguib Mahfuz was well aware that he was writing his last book, writing because he could not help but write, because serving literature is the meaning and high mission of his whole life, and the day when the desire to write leaves him will be the day of death. He was, of course, glad ... Read more