The day the leader was killed

It is amazing that love is immortalized amidst widespread corruption. This decaying chaos, did it fall behind an air raid? Piles of garbage are lying in the corners, guarding the lovers. Good morning to those piled up in the buses, your faces peeking from behind the cracked glass like prisoners on visiting day. And the crowded bridge with passersby. The hurried walkers devour their fava bean sandwiches greedily and without taste. Naguib Mahfouz often addressed the repercussions of economic openness on Egyptian society in his works, including the novel before us; he narrates this through the family of Muhtashami Zayed, a man belonging to the generation of the 1919 Revolution, who spends his old age alone at home listening to the Quran, songs, and news, feeling the pain that stems from deep within him about his family’s situation. His family consists of his son Fawaz and his wife Hanaa, who spend their lives between government work in the morning and private sector work in the afternoon to cope with the necessities of life and the frenzy of inflation; and his son Alwan, who hardly sees his parents, finding only his grandfather to find comfort in each other. Their story of love is linked to his colleague at work, Randa Suleiman, and they live the suffering of the generation of the seventies to which they belong. This suffering intensifies until it drives Alwan to kill his boss, Anwar Allam, on October 6, 1981.