Four Gates to the Hereafter: On The Dissenters
The Egyptian author of an epistolary novel — his first in English — meditates on whether his work will join the canon of world literature.
Egyptian novelists
Mohammad Hafez Ragab: Upsetting the Guards of Cairo
Maha Al Aswad sheds light on Egyptian writer Mohammad Hafez Ragab, a literary figure of the 1960s whose works have been vastly overlooked.
“Twelve Angels”—fiction from Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi
In this short story by Egyptian writer Ahmed Salah Al-Mahdi, translated from Arabic, a man contends with his mortality on his death bed.
The Mystery of Enayat al-Zayyat in Iman Mersal’s Tour de Force
Selma Dabbagh reviews a masterpiece that gives insight into the life of a remarkable woman artist striving to live on her own terms.
Shelf Life: The Irreverent Nadia Wassef
For a brutally honest look at what it’s been like to run a business and raise a family in Cairo these past twenty years, read Diwan’s founder Nadia Wassef’s “Shelf Life” How a labor of love consumes, challenges and fills her life with questions whose answers are often on the…