Egypt

Fiction

Excerpt from Naji's Novel And Tigers to my room

PEN/Opp presents an excerpt by the Egyptian writer Ahmed Naji's novel "And Tigers to my room" that was published in Arabic 2020.

Text: Ahmed Naji February 25 2022

Interview

Not my Egypt

Ahmed Naji is trying to understand the zeitgeist. In the 36 years of his life he has witnessed dictatorship, revolution, counter-revolution, military coup, jail and exile. Ahmed Naji’s story is unique...

Interview by Edgar Mannheimer February 19 2022

Article

A portrait of the fugitive in his shelter

In this text, the pseudonym Jafaar looks back from his European life in exile on his and other dissidents' experiences of arrests and torture from Egyptian prisons. The notes are divided by colours...

Text: Jafaar April 14 2021

Article

Female Poets and the Egyptian Revolution

An avid reader or a person interested in poetry often find that certain lines and images become indelible and keep recurring. A father cawing like a crow or a woman baking bread in the ruins of a war...

Text: Hoda Omran January 25 2021

Interview

My.Kali: A Novel To Remember

Antonia Kreissl meets the writer Saleem Haddad in a conversion on identity, gender, sexuality and on how the novel can be a part of forming a queer, cosmopolitan identity.

Text: Antonia Kreissl December 18 2017

Article

“The Facebook revolution”

What is known as the “Arab Spring” was allegedly the result of social media and its power to organise and mobilise demonstrations in 2011. But, how accurate is this picture? Poet and blogger Evronia...

Text: Evronia Azer September 10 2014

Article

Egypt’s digital opposition has reached its “critical mass”

Social media played a central role in the popular uprising in Egypt. But the new rulers, regardless whether they belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or the military have done their very best to take...

Text: Mohamed El Dahshan May 06 2014

Fiction

Egypt: The fanatic heart

The situation in the divided Egypt is full of uncertainty—also for those living in the midst of the crisis like author Somaya Ramadan: “How do you act on the courage of your own convictions if you do...

Text: Somaya Ramadan October 24 2013

Poetry

The bridge

It is way too early to talk about the “results” of the revolution in Egypt. Some commentators worry about that everything will remain the way it was, but the Egyptian writer Somaya Ramadan sees a slow...

Text: Somaya Ramadan September 27 2012

Article

Requiem for pigs

The Egyptian revolution showed us how people with very different backgrounds could work together for one cause: to fight a totalitarian regime. But who were they? And how can the conflict between the...

Text: Fawzia Assaad December 14 2011