What was so controversial about Children of the Alley, leading to it being banned for years in Egypt and to an attempt on the author's life? How and when was it published, criticized, understood? 

Mohamed Shoair delves into all of this in his literary investigation The Story of the Banned Book: Naguib Mahfouz's Children Of The Alley (trans. Humphrey Davies). It's a study of literary censorship and of the fight between artistic expression and religious and political authority in Egypt from the 1950s through today. 

The Story of the Banned Book: Naguib Mahfouz’s Children of the Alley will be available soon from AUC Press. An excerpt is available at the AUC Press website, as is the book’s table of contents.