The Day the Leader Was Killed

روايه مختلفه عن باقى اعمال نجيب محفوظ يمكن لانه كتبها حديثا نسبيا ...قصيره نسبيا لكنها مركزه

احببتها على بساطه فكرتها فكره ربط مصير اشخاص فى بحور بلا شواطئ بمصير بلد تغرق ولا منجى لها

رأى نجيب محفوظ فى السادات صدمنى مكنتش متخيله انه بيكرهه للدرجه دى فمثلا ذكر تعليقا على مقتل السادات على لسان احد شخصياته ب:القتل انقذه من الجنون

روايه متلونه بكذا -كعادة محفوظ فى ابراز التناقض فى البشر- رأى المتدين و الملحد و من show more باع نفسه و من رفض و الكل يدور كالثور فى ساقيه بلا نهايه
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The Day the Leader Was Killed is a succinct but significant work in contemporary Egypt. Naguib Mahfouz, through his sober and lyrical prose, has skillfully woven one of the darkest political backdrops in Egyptian history into his novel. Sealing off the seventies and reaching the threshold of a new decade, President Anwar al-Sadat implemented the Infitah, an open-door economic policy that would expedite the country forward to modernization. Like many of Mahfouz's works, this story is told in alternating first-person narratives by three characters--Muhtashimi Zayed, a pious, retired family patriarch; his grandson Elwan Fawwaz Muhtashimi; and Elwan's strong-willed, beautiful fiancée Randa Sulayman Mubarak. The story builds upon around show more this middle-class family and through the family's perspective zooms a picture of the social, economic, religious, gender and interpersonal aspects of the larger society in Egypt. For the patriarch, who devoted his whole life to prayers and religious rituals, his life was nothing but loneliness. He was especially despondent that the younger generation drifted from the Koran to whose life made a substantial influence. The old man could not forget "the woes of the world" (25) when he thought of his beloved grandson. Randa, like all her female contemporaries, faced gender challenges and the clash between traditional values and modern ideals.
The novelette evokes the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat on October 6, 1981. Sadat was saluting troops at the annual military parade when a team of assassins began firing weapons and throwing grenades into the reviewing stand. Sadat, along with 20 others was instantly killed in the deadly attack. The underlying cause of the fatal massacre traced back to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978, which led to a negotiated peace between the two countries in the following year. The historic agreement brought peace to Egypt but no prosperity. The economy still slumped with no trace of a turn-around. Poverty-stricken Muslims and Copts in Egypt rubbed in friction and exploded into some gruesome round of violence in the Cairo slum. This is the very socioeconomic backdrop on which Mahfouz adroitly set his novel. Like the Cairo Trilogy and many of his works, Mahfouz captures and chronicles the most crucial of his own times. show less

These vicissitudes of history leave me a bit dazed. I remember the day in 1981 when Anwar Sadat was assassinated. I didn't understand my teacher's indifference. Mr Goldstein's views on Israel and geopolitics were unknown to me at that point. I didn't see him 15 years and we had a nice encounter at a cafe. A few years later he wrote some scathing nearly racist letters to our alternative weekly condemning the intifada. I emailed him and am not proud of the subsequent exchanges . He was a great teacher and I wish circumstances had been different.
This novella is very As I Lay Dying. Rotating perspectives illuminate the harsh economic reality of the Sadat years and the impact such had on a betrothed couple hoping for normalcy.

this wasn't for me, although i enjoyed it more as it went along. the short chapters helped; each chapter is one of the three characters' point of view, and having only a few pages of each at a time kept it fresh and constantly moving. maybe i just don't know enough to pick up on the clues about the time and place, and the context of what was happening around these two families. missing that, i missed the point of most of it, and didn't really get this, even as i started to get more interested in the personal story by the end.

See my brief review at Fiction Readings: The Day the Leader Was Killed.