Translated by Jonathan Wright, Taxi by Khaled Al Khamissi is a sharp, engaging portrait of Cairo told through 58 fictional monologues from its taxi drivers. Blending humor, frustration, and resilience, these voices reveal the complexities of modern Egypt with raw honesty and deep humanity. A bestseller in the Arab world, Taxi offers global readers a rare glimpse into the heart of Egyptian street life.

Ismail Serageldin is the Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC). He was the Founding Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the New Library of Alexandria in Egypt (2001-2017). Before that he was the Vice-President of the World Bank (1993-2000) in charge of Environmentally Sustainable Development (ESD), and the Chairman of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). He served on many international committees and comm...

My son reminded me that it must get worse before it gets better, that there is a silver lining in everywhere we go and everything we do, yet it is on us to choose to see it or not! There were days where we thought this is it… this is the end of the tunnel and hey no light here! And there, right there at rock bottom is where I witnessed, experienced and lived the true definition of…rise again.

I am one of the many admirers of Shakespeare's genius. I have even written a book about his unique ability to remain relevant to our contemporary concerns. The work was titled The Modernity of Shakespeare1 and it was very well received, and even earned a very laudatory foreword by W ole Soyinka, Nobel laureate in Literature, and professor of English literature. So it is no surprise that when I founded the New Library of Alexandria in Egypt, I also organized an annual Shakespeare event - us...

Immerse yourself in the groundbreaking artistic vision of Sameh AL Tawil, the renowned Egyptian-German multimedia artist whose work transcends conventional boundaries of medium and expression. Written by distinguished art critic Fatma Ali, with a foreword by celebrated artist Khaled Hafez, this comprehensive monograph offers an unprecedented exploration of AL Tawil's remarkable 25-year artistic evolution. "Sameh Al Tawil : The Monograph" takes readers on a fascinating journey through AL Ta...

When ancient Egypt is mentioned, images often come to mind of tombs covered in hieroglyphs being opened by Victorian-era explorers, revealing "wonderful things"—as Howard Carter famously described upon first glimpsing the treasures of Tutankhamun. But how did Egyptology become the preserve of wealthy Europeans? And what can be done today to restore agency and rightful ownership to the country where this field was born?

"All girls [should read] The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis." — Malala Yousafzai, New York TimesThe first book in Deborah Ellis’s riveting Breadwinner series is an award-winning novel about loyalty, survival, families and friendship under extraordinary circumstances during the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan’s ca...

An “essential” (Times UK) and “meticulously researched” (Forbes) book by “the skeptical environmentalist” argues that panic over climate change is causing more harm than goodHurricanes batter our coasts. Wildfires rage across the American West. Glaciers collapse in the Artic. Politicians, activists, and the media espouse a common message: climate change is destroying the planet, and we must take drastic action immediately to stop it. Children pani...

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author's "analysis of both Shakespeare and the Renaissance is informative and often original" ( Financial Times ).Shakespeare lived in a world of absolutes—of claims for the absolute authority of scripture, monarch, and God, and the authority of fathers over wives and children, the old over the young, and the gentle over the baseborn. With the elegance and verve for which he is well known, Stephe...

Disrupting Photography with Picture Reviews; like books and movies, photos can have their own reviews.An extended version of our recent publications, with three additional Pic(k)s and reviews.We display a set of pictures and analyze each one separately; under every picture you will find two questions, “What is good about it?” and “How can it be improved?” along with our objective/subjective answers. The first few pictures are reviewed shortly to fit your taste as appetizers...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring The ancient Egyptians are an enduring source of fascination -- mummies and pyramids, curses and rituals have captured the imagination of generations. We all have a mental picture of ancient Egypt, but is it the right one? How much do we really know about this great civilization? This second edition of Ancient Egypt: A Very Short Introduction explores the history and culture of pharaonic Egypt, inlcuding ideas about Egy...

A literary novel about a young man fighting for his future in poverty-stricken Morocco.Raised by his mother in a one-room house in the slums of Casablanca, Youssef El Mekki has always had big dreams of living another life in another world. Suddenly his dreams are within reach when he discovers that his father—whom he'd been led to believe was dead—is very much alive. A wealthy businessman, he seems eager to give his son a new start.Youssef leaves his mother...