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The author pays tribute to the prolific Egyptian writer Sonallah Ibrahim, best known as a leftist writer who began his career in the 1960s, during the reign of President Nasser.When I first m…
Gretchen McCullough
September 30, 2025
July 16, 2025Albert Cossery / Courtesy of New Directions The end of June marked the anniversary of the death of Albert Cossery (1913–2008), a French-speaking Egyptian writer who is not particularly famous, but…
February 5, 2025Background photo by Taiga / Adobe Stock / Author photo courtesy of AUC Press Years ago, I visited the Alhambra in Granada and was awestruck by the grand palace and fortress that was built during…
October 15, 2024Five or six years ago, I was reading Ihsan Abdel Quddous (1919–1990) with my Arabic teacher and thought of writing an article about him in English, but I found only one translation on Amazon. I was pu…
Seattle. Cune Press. 2024. 198 pages. With a sharp eye for detail, Gretchen McCullough’s Shahrazad’s Gift is a short-story collection that delves into Cairo’s lively, chaotic daily i…
August 24, 2023Hamdi Abu Golayyel (b. 1967) was a gifted storyteller who fused Egyptian oral storytelling, myth, and folklore to tell the tales of marginalized and working-class communities in Egypt. He died on June…
June 10, 2020Historical markers for Ismail Yassine. They are both off of 26th of July Street. Photo courtesy of the author Suffering news fatigue, a writer-translator walks Cairo’s streets search…
One of the reasons I love living in Cairo is the fact that everyone spins yarns: the porter, the maid, the taxi driver. No one has the corner on stories—many of these stories rely on rumor, humor, and…
October 21, 2025
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