Naǧīb Maḥfūẓ and Leonardo Sciascia: Between social and institutional justice

Abstract

This comparative literature study investigates the concept of justice in the works of Naǧīb Maḥfūẓ and Leonardo Sciascia. Both novelists, throughout their extensive careers, obsessively explore the fundamental concept of justice in both their literary and non-literary works. Beginning with the historical context, the article examines the political transformations that occurred in Egypt and Italy during the lifetimes of these writers. These transformations significantly impacted the judicial system and social life in each country. While Maḥfūẓ focused on justice in its social context and the Sciascia in its institutional context, both explore through their literary texts and cultural-political commitments the intricate relationship between political power, the legal system, and organized crime. The article addresses the methodological differences in the authors’ styles and their approaches to the concept of justice, as well as the similarities in their attempts to find alternatives to the absence of justice through aesthetic-literary compensation and, subsequently, through a metaphysical dimension. The article demonstrates how Maḥfūẓ and Sciascia’s exploration of justice evolves from a rational critique of societal and institutional failures to a metaphysical contemplation, where the concept of ‘death’ becomes central to understanding justice.