In 1967, the term “Arabic literature,” for most Western readers, meant two books, the Quran and “The Arabian Nights.” But that year, readers were handed a full menu of contemporary fiction in Arabic with the publication of “Modern Arabic Short Stories,” an anthology that showcased the work of 20 writers, including Yusuf Idris, Tayeb Salih, Zakaria Tamer and Naguib Mahfouz, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.

The translator was an Englishman living in Cairo, Denys Johnson-Davies, who had made it his life’s mission to bring the writers he loved, and in many cases knew personally, to an international audience. He had been at it for more than two decades. At his own expense, he had published “Tales From Egyptian Life,” by the short-story writer Mahmud Taymur, in 1947, and he was the first to translate a story by Mr. Mahfouz, who at that time was still working as a civil servant.

Over the next 50 years, he was a one-man cottage industry, translating more than 30 Arabic novels, short-story collections and anthologies, including the works of the Egyptian writers Tawfik al-Hakim and Mohamed el-Bisatie; the Iraqi writer Abdul Malek Nuri; and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

He was best known for his translations of Mr. Mahfouz, whom he came to know in Cairo immediately after World War II, well before many Egyptians were even acquainted with his work. After Mr. Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize, Mr. Johnson-Davies translated his “The Time and the Place and Other Stories” (1991), “The Journey of Ibn Fattouma” (1992), “Arabian Nights and Days” (1995) and “Echoes of an Autobiography” (1997).