Du roman à la scène : Le diable fait la morale de Naguib Mahfouz, une allégorie théâtrale des paradoxes du monde arabe

Abstract

This article reassesses the place of theatre in Naguib Mahfouz’s work through “The Devil Preaches Morals”, a hybrid text published in 1979. Drawing on the imaginary world of “The Thousand and One Nights” and on the symbolic setting of the “City of Brass”, the study shows how Mahfouz turns the marvellous into a critical device. The petrified city, the silenced people, the deified queen and the preaching devil form an allegory of post-Nasser Arab societies marked by authoritarianism, the manipulation of religion and the failure of modernity’s promises. The article therefore argues that Mahfouz the playwright extends his social realism by transposing it onto a symbolic stage where tradition, power and the future are put on trial. The play thus appears as a central and still relevant text on freedom, collective responsibility and the refusal of silence.