CAIRO — Over a period of 12 years, 650,000 copies of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz’s books have been sold — a figure that has spurred a heated debate whether this signifies a commercial success or a failure to promote the country’s Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, particularly among the youth.

According to Dar El-Shorouk, the publishing house that owns the exclusive publishing rights to Mahfouz’s works in Arabic, the number of books sold is a success. The publisher said in a March 15 statement that the works of Mahfouz have been published “in unprecedented numbers” and “in several editions for each book.”

It continued, “Some books had more than 16 editions, and we published around 650,000 copies in 12 years. We hope we will reach 1 million [sold copies] of Mahfouz’s books in the coming months due to the interest of our readers. This is a unique achievement for Arabic-language literature.”

Egyptian novelist Hassan Abdel-Mawgoud believes just the opposite. “The number of books sold is dissatisfactory and it does not match Mahfouz’s status [as one of Egypt's best-known authors]. Mahfouz’s 54 novels and short story collections were printed in 54,000 copies per year, which means 1,000 copies for each book, in a country with a population of more than 100 million people, 74 million of whom can read. These low rates are not due to Mahfouz’s books or classics in general,” he told Al-Monitor.