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Naguib Mahfouz's Half A Day

968 Words4 Pages

Naguib Mahfouz True Colors Shown through his Novels “Events at home, at work, in the streets - these are bases for a story” (“Naguib Mahfouz Quotes”). Naguib Mahfouz said these wise words in regards to his owns writings. Naguib Mahfouz’s life experiences greatly impacted his works of literature. Facing many different conflicts growing up in Cairo Egypt due to religious, political, and economical issues throughout his homeland. Although some individuals did not fancy his writings because of the truthfulness of them, the ones who adore them believe his stories have made a worldwide impact. Mahfouz’s background appears in all of his writings, especially the poem Half a day and the books Children of Gebelawi, Thebes at War, and The Cairo Trilogy. …show more content…

The writing starts out with a youthful boy going to his first day of school, throughout the book he completes large memorable milestones of life without stopping to think about them, by the time he returns back home everything has changed tremendously. “Good lord! Where was the street lined with garden? Where has is disappeared to? When did all these vehicles invade it?”(Mahfouz 87). This is an excerpt from the short story of Half a Day, it talks about how much his city has been transformed into something he was not expecting. The excerpt explains how Naguib felt about how his home town was changing so much and becoming a completely new place, from old-fashioned to modern. “I could only see tall buildings and hordes of people”(Mahfouz 87). The quote that is mentioned shows that Mahfouz is not impressed of amused with the amount of new people coming into his hometown. “How did these hill of refuse come to cover its’ sides”(Mahfouz 87). Refuse is trash that covers a vast part of the streets, Mahfouz was not accustomed to seeing the trash all over the place. Half a Day depicts exactly how Mahfouz felt about his hometown becoming more

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