Who shot Kamar al-Dawar Alwan? Was it a crime of passion? What was the role of the beautiful peasant girl Rim? Is the mysterious Sheikh Asfur as crazy as he seems? Partly autobiographical, Diary of a Country Prosecutor is an Egyptian comedy of errors. Imbued with the ideals of a European education, the young public prosecutor encounters a world of poverty and backwardness where an imported legal system is both alien and incomprehensible.

Tawfik al-Hakim was born in Alexandria in 1898 and studied law in Paris. He became the Arab world’s leading dramatist, as well as a major short story writer.