Under the umbrella

Then many construction workers approached, followed by heavily laden carts with stones, cement, and building tools, and with astonishing speed they built a magnificent grave, and nearby they made a large bed out of stones, covered it with sheets, and decorated its edges with roses, all of that under the rain. And they went to the wreckage of the two cars, extracted the bodies from it, heads crushed, limbs burned, and they gathered the body of the man lying face down beneath the lovers who did not cease practicing love. Naguib Mahfouz wrote this collection of stories and plays between October and December 1967; that is, immediately after the setback, and expressed what many Egyptians were thinking, revealing many mistakes that led the country to this devastating defeat. In the story "Under the Umbrella," he talked about the absurdity of the regime and the chaos of the political scene through an absurd, irrational scene where a group of people are standing under an umbrella, believing that this scene cannot be real and must be a theatrical performance. In the story "Sleep," he narrates about a man sitting in a casino, approached by a girl crying out to him for help from a madman trying to kill her, but the man is sleeping and does not hear her screams, so the madman manages to kill her; this is symbolic of the indifference that led to the defeat... and other stories and plays filled with symbolism. Author: Naguib Mahfouz Publication date: 2024 Book category: Short stories and novels Publisher: Diwan Publishing Number of pages: 287 Format: Paperback