One of my favorite things in life is a good short story. The kind that resonates and you never forget. Today, on my way home from work, I reread an excellent example: the haunting "Half a Day" by Naguib Mahfouz. In my opinion, it is the allegorical quality of the charaters, actions and setting the principal element of its success. There is not much room for mistakes in a short story, in this one Mahfouz has managed to create an enticing narrative that completely surprises you in the end. 

The central allegorical implications of this tale are a commentary on the human condition; an entire life span is experienced as only "half a day" in the school of life. The story also alludes to the cycle of life, whereby the narrator passes through childhood, middle age and old age in the course of one day. Critic Rasheed El-Enany, in Naguib Mahfouz, has called "Half a Day" a "technical tour de force. " El-Enany explains that "brief as it is, the story must count as the author's most powerful rendering of the dilemma of the gulf between observable time and mnemonic time."

Naguib Mahfouz was born around 1911 in the Gamaliyya quarter of Cairo, Egypts, which later became a favorite setting for many of his works. he is referred to as "Al-Sabir" or "the patient one" by his friends, because he labored in obscurity for many years.

Mahfouz had many interests as a teenager. He liked to read Egyptian detective novels, go to the movies, play soccer, listen to music and visit friends. He has said, "To be able to do all that, I had to divide my time very carefully... I wanted to be brilliant so I had to work hard."

Mahfouz attendd the University of Cairo. He worked in the Ministry of Religious Affairs for fifteen years until he transferreed to a post in the Arts Administration. During these years he continued to write fiction and successful screenplays. The breakthrough in his career came in 1956 with the publication of Between the Two Palaces, which  is now the most famous novel in the Arabic language. Since his retirement in 1972, Mahfouz has written prolifically, producing fourteen novels and five short-story collections. Arabian Nights and Days, a  collection of seventeen interonnected tales first published in Arabic in 1979, has recently been translated into English. Mahfouz received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. Mahfouz died in Cairo on August 30, 2006.