Half a Day

“Half a Day” is a short story by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz (Midaq Alley, Palace Walk, Zaabalawi). Published as part of Mahfouz’s 1991 collection The Time and the Place and Other Stories, “Half a Day” departs from the social realism for which Mahfouz became famous, instead employing elements of allegory and surrealism. All quotes in this guide refer to Denys Johnson-Davies’s English translation of the work.

The story opens in an unnamed city early in the morning. The narrator, a young boy, is struggling to keep up with his father, who is walking him to school for the first time. Although his father is cheerful and reassuring, remarking that the day represents an important step forward in life, the narrator is nervous; he feels he’s being punished: “I did not believe there was really any good to be had in tearing me away from the intimacy of my home” (Paragraph 5). His anxiety only increases when he arrives at school, where he and the other children are divided into groups and welcomed by a woman who advises them to accept

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