Nobel winner Mahfouz lives on in Cairo's alleyways

A mural depicting Egyptian novelist and nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz is pictured behind the al-Azhar mosque in downtown Cairo. Photo: AFP

The legacy of Islamic Cairo's most famous son Naguib Mahfouz lives on in its winding lanes more than three decades after he became the only Arab to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

A mosaic of the bespectacled author overlooks a market teeming with children on bikes, waiters balancing trays of hot drinks and shoppers haggling with hawkers over the price of meat.