Egypt at a Glance 277Cleopatra
In the springtime of 51 BC, Ptolemy Auletes died and left his
kingdom in his will to his 18-year-old daughter, Cleopatra,
and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII who was 12 at the
time. Cleopatra was born in 69 BC in Alexandria. Her death
on 12 August 30 BC at the age of 39 marked the end of the
Egyptian Monarchs as it coincided with the Roman Emperors
coming in to rule in Egypt. The Ptolemies were Macedonian
in descent, but ruled as Egyptians, as Pharaohs. Cleopatra
was the last Pharaoh of Egypt.
Naguib Mahfouz (1911–2006 )
Egyptian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1988, and was the fi rst Arabic writer to be so
honoured. Born in Cairo, Naguib Mahfouz began writing when
he was 17 and until 1972, was employed as a civil servant.
Mahfouz’s major work in the 1950s was The Cairo Trilogy,
which the author completed before the July Revolution. The
individual novels were titled with the street names Palace
Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. Mahfouz set the
tri-generational story on a fi cticious, tiny winding street
named Zuqaq al-Midaq in the neighbourhoods of Cairo where
he grew up.
Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970)
Born in Alexandria to a family that comes from the Assiut
Governorate, Nasser was brought up and educated in
Alexandria and Cairo. He led a nationalist movement in
1952 that ousted the Egyptian monarchy and transformed
Egypt into a republic. Nasser became Prime Minister of Egypt
in 1954 and subsequently negotiated an end to Britain’s
72-year occupation of Egypt. Nasser was elected president
of Egypt in 1956 and remained in offi ce until his death in
- His accomplishments included the construction of
the Aswan High Dam, the institution of land reforms and
a programme of industrialisation, and the restoration of
Egyptian self-government.