Sadeq Choobak and Najeeb Mahfooz are pioneer novelists in Iran and Egypt who have great contribution on the evolution and development of story writing. Tangsir of Sadeq Choobak and Thief and dogs of Najeeb Mahfooz novels have reflected the social realities of a historical period of Iran and Egypt and revealed the internal and external world of low level people of their societies. Reflection of poverty and injustice، emphasis on individual battle and seeking justice of the society’s hero، partly outstanding role of woman، studying the realistic and naturalistic styles and symbolism feature of both novels are among the subjects which have been dealt in analytical study of these two novels.

The expression of novel in literature deals with various literary works whose corner-stones are being written in prose, being like a story and its length. The main elements that convey the theme of a novel are its characters. A novel is an indicator of the behaviours and states of the characters whose unique names and characteristics in an outside world have substitutes that indicate the fate of other members of the society for the reader. The writer of the novel creates the characters from an example of real mankind and tries to indicate their reactions to the deeds and behaviors of themselves and other characters. In a word, it creates an example of a real mankind with all its mental and emotional characteristics. Therefore, in order to create a valuable literary work, he should have enough skills in terms of characterization. The present study is an attempt to indicate the effort of Najib Mahfūz, the famous and contemporary Egyptian novelist, to the element of character and different ways of characterization in his literary works that in this investigation, this phenomenon is just examined in the novel “al-Lis va al-kilāb”. The main motivation in the selection of this character and novel is the place of this literary work in Arabic story writing because some people consider it as a corner-stone in Arabic story writing. This study first investigated the definition and place of character in literature and after enumerating different types of characters and different methods of characterization, the novel will be investigated based on the above mentioned criteria.

“The Dogs and the Thieves” is the second symbolism novel written by Najib Mahfouz in 60s after “Olad Haretana” in 1961. The writer denies the republic government through this novel and insists on importance of sovereignty in Egypt.The novel is an image of those countries in which tyranny and injustice are ruled over and actually the justice is lost. The writer criticizes the authorities and the government indirectly by the issues of religion and the women in Egypt and presents them as “The Dogs and the Thieves” to the readers. The present article precedes the mentioned contents as well as its form as well.

The Dogs and the Thieves” is the second symbolism novel written by Najib Mahfouz in 60s after “Olad Haretana” in 1961. The writer denies the republic government through this novel and insists on importance of sovereignty in Egypt. The novel is an image of those countries in which tyranny and injustice are ruled over and actually the justice is lost. The writer criticizes the authorities and the government indirectly by the issues of religion and the women in Egypt and presents them as “The Dogs and the Thieves” to the readers. The present article precedes the mentioned contents as well as its form as well.

Time in the novel follows a horizontal movement, but occasionally some disturbance occurs in time''s element which is called as anachronism by critics and is emerged as two retrospective and prospective forms. By taking a descriptive-analytic method, in the present study an attempt was made to investigate the anachronism concept in novel The Thief and the Dogs by Naguib Mahfouz. The findings reveal that the anachronism applied by Naguib Mahfouz reflects the political and mental conflicts in Egypt leading to consistency in the story, the development of its atmosphere and the reader''s persuasion. Applying events related to the past is noticed more than the events related to the future. This story entails many external retrospective views considered as the main lines in the life of the story hero, indicating that these retrospective views make many problems in the story resolved.

Defamiliarization or foreignization is a formalist concept that influences common and familiar scenes and presents them in new ways and different from everyday realities. According to Shklovsky, the concept implies that foreignizing whatever is familiar and habitual. Walking, for example, is a regular act but dance is changing and tangible act. We often inhale air automatically; the same is true of language, it is the middle ground in which we move. But, when the air is suddenly polluted or accompanied by dust, our attention is drawn to our breathing, and it may affect our physical life as a profound experience. Formalists believe that art changes our habits and whatever is about us and makes the strange. Art and literature are supposed to discover things for the second time. Formalists believe that art and literature should arouse astonishment and unfamiliarity in audience and make them feel a strange feeling. According to them, artists try to move things far away from their regular context and create unexpected features. Therefore, defamiliarization or foreignization seeks to break the habits, but it is based on reality. Shafiei Kadkani believes that there is no limitation for defamiliarization, and every kind of innovation in art is a sort of defamiliarization. It is worth mentioning that all tactics for making arts are universal and common among cultures and the result of human being’s creativity. Writing, especially creating novels, is among the arts that work based on defamiliarizatin. Novelists put aside familiar methods of narrating stories to present their idea in a special and personal way because that would result in innovation in writing and make the readership feel close to the writer, the exact thing that formalism emphasizes.  The novelist has the ability to present an exact image of life artistically. This happens when he uses a set of strategies such as defamiliarization or foreignization for writing a new, unfamiliar and irregular novel. He continuously tries to makes novelties even when his works are different in terms of literary type (anecdote, short story, and novel). It can be said that he stands against real perceptions, and this resistance results in new writings. Therefore, he presents a story with unusual and unfamiliar issues that seem to be the basics. The basics are in such a way that would prevent the author from going far away from the events and characters. Shkolvsky explains the theory that a bond is made between us and all the things around us, something that becomes internalized in wisdom. In this way, the things unconsciously become new, and the new idea becomes a habit. The role of literariness here is making us conscious again. This is done through what shekovsky calls it defamiliarization/foreignization, which is breaking the bonds between things and us. Shkolvsky explains the theory that a bond is made between us and all the things around us, which becomes internalized in wisdom. In this way, the things unconsciously become new and the new idea becomes a habit. The role of literariness here is making us conscious again. This is done through what Shkolvsky calls it defamiliarization/foreignization, which is breaking the bonds between things and us. Regarding the subject and using the theory as a framework, his study sought to explore the effect of defamilirazation, as a formalist technique, on the title, characters, time, events, theme, style, language of the novel ‘The Thief and the Dogs’.(اللص والکلاب)

The study aimed to explore the criticism concept of defamiliaraization and its effect on novel and literary works. Regarding the objective, the novel ‘The Thief and the Dogs’ was selected as it was identified to be an appropriate one.

 This is a descriptive-analytical study showing that the novel ‘The Thief and the Dogs’ is a mystery in which defamiliarization is visible and the technique makes the novel strange. The mysterious features of the novel make it strange and different from what one may encounter in daily life.

The followings were concluded through exploring the examples of defamiliarization in ‘The Thief and the Dogs’:1. Defamiliarization occurs in this novel when paradox, irony and symbols become dominant. The symbols are full of ironies, and the term Kalab (thief) has two visible and hidden meanings, but the writer meant the second one which means “treacherous”. The audience understands the symbol and the breach of semantic norms that makes the text defamiliarized. 2. When looked from formalism point of view, symbols and messages that are in different aspects of Egypt community, religion and woman, make the novel defamiliarized.  3. The paradox of characters makes the readership familiar with unusual concepts.  4. Expected and unexpected events create a paradox and result in a defamiliarized language of the novel.

Literary criticism is a lively science which develops with the development of societies and people's thoughts. This science has connections to other human sciences and amongst its branches intertextuality has a root in old Arabic literary criticism with similarities to adoption, plagiarism, and parody. But the difference is that intertextuality is pre-designed and on purpose and does not occur evidently. In the simplest definition intertextuality means the overlap of texts. In this research we have chosen Qur’anic intertextuality among various types of intertextuality to survey the ‘The Thief and the Dogs’ which is one of the philosophic novels of Naguib Mahfouz and is about the return to the roots and the quest for Allah. This novel was created during the years of consecutive revolutions and especially the 1952 revolution that resulted in the downfall of King Farouq’s government and the rise of a republic state. These conditions became. ..

Translation is one of the most important contemporary cultural issues. Thetranslator's jobis not only to replacewords, butasamediator, to createsome sort of coordination betweenthe national cultureandthe source culture thathasits owncustoms. This makes difficult the work of translator and makes his mission even more complex. Newmark, the American scholar and theorist in the field of translation proposed a method for translating cultural elements thathave been accepted in scientific circles. This study used a descriptive-analytical method, and based on Newmark's theoretical framework, it attempted to criticize and reviewthe translation of cultural concepts inthe novel "El-lisswal-kilab" by Naguib Mahfouz, which has been translated by two Iranian translators. Despitethe efforts made by the two translators, there can be seen complexities and short comings in the translation of cultural elements.The results show that in the translation, the integrative approach is less used as a method for the successful translation of cultural elements.