Naguib Mahfouz (file photo)

Renowned Egyptian author and Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz died Wednesday at age 94.

Mahfouz died at a Cairo hospital, where he was admitted more than a month ago after suffering an injury to his head.

The Egyptian author won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. He is the only writer in Arabic to win the prestigious award.

He is best known for his novels depicting life in his most favorite area of ancient Cairo.

Egypt's religious authorities banned his 1959 novel "Children of Gabalawi" on the grounds that it included characters representing God and the prophets, which violated Islamic rules.

In 1994, he was stabbed in the neck by Islamic militants. The attack damaged a nerve and impaired his ability to write.

Born in 1911 into a Cairo merchant's family, Mahfouz became one of the Middle East's most famous and beloved writers with 50 novels, several plays, and scores of short stories and essays.