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Prosecutor. The Prosecutor was created by the Egyptian writer Tawfiq al-Hakim and appeared in Yaumiat na'ib fi al-ariaf (1937). Yaumiat na'ib fi al-ariaf is considered to be the first Egyptian detective novel.

The Prosecutor is a disillusioned, sarcastic prosecutor and District Attorney who is forced to deal with a murder in the countryside. However, the Prosecutor finds that “justice,” in rural Egypt, is a complete misnomer, with the laws and judges of 1937 Cairo being entirely foreign to rural village life. Similarly, the peasants who are the Prosecutor’s only hope for solving the case are useless and no better than animals, in the Prosecutor’s eyes. Finally, after being given only eleven days to wrap up the case, he figuratively throws up his hands, chooses the most obvious suspect, the village idiot, convicts him and then returns to his home, filled with hopelessness about the legal system of Egypt. The Prosecutor is a “slim, sensitive” soul whose bitter cynicism covers a sorrow at the state of his country.

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