The Day the Leader was Killed

A detailed Summary of The Day the Leader was Killed

Naguib Mahfouz was born in Cairo, Egypt. He graduated from University of Cairo in 1935, majoring in philosophy. Over the span of his life, he has written more than 30 novels and at least 14 collections of short stories (Naguib 1). After his academic pursuits, he had served the government and several other ministries; he spent his spare time writing. Although he retired from that job in 1971, he still pursued his writing career. In 1988, Naguib Mafouz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (Naguib 1).

This fiction writer has a variety of books, which represent a wide range of themes. In The Day the Leader was Killed, he shows realism in the situations presented through the minds or perspectives of the different characters. Religious affiliation is clearly shown throughout the novel. This seems to be the only aspect in their "miserable" lives that gives them any hope to live on. In this story, we see Elwan's and Randa's families plagued by the economic situations around them. The Infitah is repeated numerous times throughout the novel to highlight the cause of the characters' conflicts with life and each other; this Infitah was Sadat's open-door economic policy (Egypt 1). Sadat coming in

Elwan Fawwaz Muhtashimi portrayed a typical man who was desperately trying to balance money and relationships in a society that makes doing so extremely complicated. He goes through many dilemmas, which makes life harder to deal with. In the beginning of the novel, there seems to be some promise emanating from Elwan in his financial and relational aspects of his life. However, in the end, the failed social struggle leaves Elwan without either of those facets. This explains why Elwan acts the way he does; all he wants is to find true love and economic strength. However, when he does not reach these, he goes into a depressive state and acts unreasonably. Nearing the conclusion of the book, Elwan kills a man, Anwar, his boss at the firm, and later ends up missing. In all of this, his troubles ramified from his financial failure due to the hard times of the country's economy.

to power has negatively affected the country, which is ultimately shown in this story through the trials of Elwan Fawwaz Mutashimi.

Another hard-hitting reality that has affected Elwan under the new rule of Anwar al-Sadat, is his relationship with his parents, which is non-existent. Due to the circumstances of the economic standing of his family, both have to work extremely hard to make ends meet. It was a direct result of Anwar's Infitah that made them work much harder. The only person that Elwan can talk to is his grandfather, Muhtashimi Zayed. In one contemplative thought he shares with his grandfather his thoughts on the matter when he says, "I lost my parents when they lost themselves in continuous work from morning to night, shuttling between the government and private sector to eke out a meager living"(Mafouz 10). This shows how this directly affected his relationship with his parents. He lacks the most important aspect in a person's life, which is that missing presence of his parents' love.

On the otherhand, Gulf Arab investments began to flow into the country and international investment and foreign aid increased (Egypt 1). On top of that, Sadat won a Nobel Peace prize for his efforts. In the end, his peace efforts and institution of his policies had isolated President Sadat from the people, which were shown in the indifference in his death.

Elwan's first problem is with his financial status. With the rise of the Infitah under the new President Anwar al-Sadat, Egypt was having some major problems dealing with the rise in poverty. The primary effect was that it made prices on everything much higher, therefore making everyon

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Approximate Word count = 1718
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English