What It’s Like To … Run a Publishing House and Bookstore in Cairo

I was brought up with books and culture, and became a collector of old books. I always dreamed of having a bookshop like L’Orientaliste in downtown Cairo, where I was a regular client. I could picture myself having a place like that in my 50s or 60s.

In 2006, at the age of 40, I started Al Kotob Khan as a cultural hub to serve everyone. We offer book discussions, creative writing workshops, poetry nights, and music nights. Al Kotob Khan has always been a center for enlightenment, promoting information and culture, and encouraging young people to read and write.

Of course, it’s not the same as it was when I started 20 years ago, due to the economic situation and all kinds of difficulties I face working in culture in a country with a high rate of illiteracy. People often lack the financial means to buy books.

Twenty years ago, there was no other place like Al Kotob Khan where you could go in the morning, have coffee, and enjoy reading a book or a newspaper. There were only restaurants and cafes that opened in the afternoon after the midday prayer.

As a publishing house, we organized creative writing workshops and published the new voices of the participants. We then began to receive requests and manuscripts from established authors who wanted to publish with us.

After 2011, I took it very seriously to translate progressive and avant-garde writing. I’m trying to publish books and introduce authors who create high-quality literature in very difficult times when commercial interests drive everything.

We’re a small publishing house, so we have to do everything ourselves. For the past five years, my husband has been my partner at Al Kotob Khan, contributing to the editing, cover design, the website, and backstage work.

We publish around 20 books a year. Unfortunately, I say no to many manuscripts, because it’s very difficult to find interesting, good-quality manuscripts that tell a story I haven’t read before or show a different perspective.

It’s an insane moment and a very depressing time in the world, which of course reflects on my work. Sometimes I ask myself, ‘What can a book do while there’s a genocide on our borders? What book of poetry should I publish while they’re attacking a Christian teacher because she was doing her job, preventing students from cheating in exams?’

But I tell myself that I have to continue. One book cannot change the world; however, the accumulation of books and reading, alongside good education and quality journalism, can influence the way parents raise their children. If those books are not well-read at the moment, there will be some people who will read them in 10 years or 20 years.

In this challenging economy, there’s always a shortage of money, and we rely on people buying our books. There is no way to overcome this. You have to deal with it on a case-by-case basis. You delay the publication of one book for another that could bring in some money. For example, we will publish Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message and Peter Beinart’s Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning.

I believe in good books. I’m now focusing on a project of translating books about Egypt’s modern and contemporary history. We don’t have access to this information and our past. It’s a cliché that victors write history, but there’s history we should learn about in this critical moment, when we, as Egyptians, are feeling down for different reasons.

It’s the little things that give me encouragement and happiness: a regular client coming to get our newly published books or a young guy telling me, ‘When I was little, you recommended this book to me.’ I’m happy and I’m proud and I will continue.”