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In Cairo, ‘A Renewed Appetite for Egyptian and Arab Literature’

SEPTEMBER 30, 2026 — Over at CairoScene, Hassan Tarek reports on book-buying trends in Cairo, with a focus on the sales trends at the Diwan bookstores, one of Egypt’s largest chains.

He writes:

The clearest common thread is a renewed appetite for Egyptian and Arab literature and culture. In Diwan’s English department, Egyptian and Arabic literature accounted for 44 per cent of copies sold among its 20 strongest-selling titles of the first half of 2026, according to Haguer Amin, the department’s English Book Buyer.

Eight of those 20 titles are Egyptian or Arabic works.

The Arabic department, Tarek writes, has seen a similar phenomenon, with renewed interest in Arabic titles by Naguib Mahfouz, Taha Hussein, and Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, as well as titles in translations by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

Diwan staffer Ahmed Gamal told CairoScene that much of the renewed interest was likely down to lower prices, with publishers recognizing the value of works that have entered the public domain. Ghassan Kanafani’s works entered the public domain in 2022, for instance, while Taha Hussein’s works entered the public domain in 2024 and Doria Shafik’s in 2025.

Titles by Abdel Kouddous and Mahfouz, however, won’t reach public domain for several more decades.

Gamal also talked about the role of books appearing on TV. A 1938 short-story collection by Naguib Mahfouz, Whisper of Madness, sold only a few copies a month at the beginning of 2026, Gamal told CairoScene. But then the daughter of popular novelist Ahmed Mourad appeared on the program “Mourad’s House” talking about the book. “As soon as she held the book, the video went viral, and the book received a lot of attention, both in Egypt and abroad,” Gamal told CairoScene.

Amin told CairoScene that, when it came to English-language books, “TikTok, Instagram, and Goodreads” had more influence around the time of the annual Cairo Book Fair, when young people were often looking for popular new books. For the rest of the year, readers “settled in” to more classic works.

When it came to the Arabic bestsellers, Egyptian crime and thriller writer Mirna El Mahdy occupied “all of the top six positions on the website’s Egypt list.” El Mahdy is probably best-known for her “Nuh al-Alfi Investigates” crime series.

As far as we know, no books by Mirna El Mahdy have been translated to English; you can see more about her work on her Instagram.