After three years of freedom, the Egyptian poet and activist Ahmed Douma is once again imprisoned. @elgendy95.bsky.social translates a poem he wrote while incarcerated back in 2023.

A leader of several protest movements and a prominent activist in Tahrir Square, Ahemd Douma spent a decade behind bars as a political prisoner. Yet as @elgendy95.bsky.social observes, his work refuses to engage with the politics of futility.

We're thinking of our contributor Ahmed Douma right now. Along with this poem from @thebaffler.com, we want to share his poem "Zaytouna" (tr. @elgendy95.bsky.social). "We’ll return/to Zaytouna, to shade/our suture." wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

dear friend and egyptian poet Ahmed Douma will be sentenced in two weeks, on june 3, for a political commentary. this is douma’s second imprisonment; the first lasted ten years. i translated his haunting poem, “the thing between the wall and my body”. please read him.

I'm sharing a series of slides from @elgendy95.bsky.social's instagram account about how mutual aid works in Gaza. There are 5 slides (I will thread them) & you can see the original post here: www.instagram.com/p/DMaj16Ostyh/

@ahmeddouma.bsky.social ’s “Zaytouna,” written during the author’s incarceration, is an ode to an olive tree planted by a friend in Palestine, and to the hope it symbolizes. Read the poem (tr. @elgendy95.bsky.social : wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...

For the @washingtonpost.com, I wrote about Laila Soueif—not only the grieving mother starving for her son’s release, but the towering icon of dissent with a legacy all her own. No matter how this ends, Laila lives. wapo.st/3HT3xin

"Why I Had to Flee the United States I was a political prisoner in Egypt. I didn’t want to become one again in America. Abdelrahman ElGendy The hallmark of authoritarianism isn’t the knock at the door—it’s life under the constant fear of its arrival."

“After Mahmoud Khalil was abducted by ICE agents in front of his university apartment in NYC, I locked myself inside my home for a month… my lawyers gently but unequivocally told me that the question had likely become no longer if I would be arrested but when.” So, Abdelrahman ElGendy fled the US.

“The hallmark of authoritarianism isn’t the knock at the door—it’s life under the constant fear of its arrival.” Critical & devastating read by Abdelrahman ElGendy www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“The hallmark of authoritarianism isn’t the knock at the door—it’s life under the constant fear of its arrival.” Abdel Rahman Elgendy, who was a political prisoner in Egypt for six years, has now fled the US. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Two days ago, I officially earned my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. But, for the second degree in a row, a dictatorship robbed me of a graduation day. 🧵

“Let us grieve the costs we pay for being non-ideal imperial subjects, but may our grief not distract us from the real story. May it propel us into fury.”

listen, listen! ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

This is what I keep thinking about as I digest my alma mater @swarthmorecollege.bsky.social’s response to protest. The fury and fear aimed at protesters, not a state that has erased entire futures. The willingness to play into the hands of an administration that gleefully scapegoats Arabs & Muslims.

Two days ago, I officially earned my MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Pittsburgh. But, for the second degree in a row, a dictatorship robbed me of a graduation day. 🧵

Today in @thenation.com: After 3 yrs of carving a home in U.S. exile, I fled again fearing an ICE arrest. The risk wasn’t just deportation, but life in prison back in Egypt. What myths does the US empire uphold about itself? When does fascism stop "descending"? www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“Our persecuted fled to the US from prisons, wars, and bloodshed, the belly of the beast a refuge from its claws tearing at our homelands. But today, we relive the very realities we fled.” @elgendy95.bsky.social on political imprisonment, from Egypt to America. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

“The hallmark of authoritarianism isn’t the knock at the door—it’s life under the constant fear of its arrival… It wasn’t just a departure I was weighing; it was the abandonment of a life I had painstakingly built against the conditions of my exile.” www.thenation.com/article/soci...

From our guest editor @El_Gendy_95, in The Nation today. www.instagram.com/p/DJJwpXfsoj...

“Our persecuted fled to the US from prisons, wars, and bloodshed, the belly of the beast a refuge from its claws tearing at our homelands. But today, we relive the very realities we fled” I am enraged and heartbroken and I am sure Abdelrahman’s story is only one of many.

An important, eloquent and deeply upsetting piece by @elgendy95.bsky.social who I was lucky to teach while he worked on his upcoming book. After years as a political prisoner in Egypt, he faced the same risk in the US and had to flee. Such an enraging loss.

"The hallmark of authoritarianism isn’t the knock at the door—it’s life under the constant fear of its arrival."

"The hallmark of authoritarianism isn’t the knock at the door—it’s life under the constant fear of its arrival." My heart breaks for my writer friend @elgendy95.bsky.social, who recently fled the U.S. He had made a home here after being a political prisoner in Egypt. Please read his story.

"The hallmark of authoritarianism isn't the knock at the door--it's life under the constant fear of its arrival."

Former Egyptian political prisoner @elgendy95.bsky.social came to the US to seek stability and security. I am heartbroken that a talented, empathetic, and brilliant author like him could not find that. The greatest indictment of a country is its inability to protect the most vulnerable.

"After Mahmoud Khalil was abducted, I locked myself inside my home for a month." Why @elgendy95.bsky.social, a former political prisoner in Egypt, decided he had no choice but to flee Donald Trump's America.

Today in @thenation.com: @elgendy95.bsky.social, who was a political prisoner in Egypt, writes about why he recently decided to flee the US rather than risk the same fate again. The story he tells is heartbreaking and infuriating and really important. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

I began this semester supporting the eloquent and talented @elgendy95.bsky.social [email protected] for what would have been an amazing critical archive project. Instead, he has fled into exile. Please read his powerful story here, with rage and grief. www.instagram.com/p/DJJwpXfsoj...

Today in @thenation.com: After 3 yrs of carving a home in U.S. exile, I fled again fearing an ICE arrest. The risk wasn’t just deportation, but life in prison back in Egypt. What myths does the US empire uphold about itself? When does fascism stop "descending"? www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Read some of these haunting letters I had the honor of curating for ArabLit's Grief issue. arablit.org/grief/

Every week I think many times of Dr Adnan al-Bursh, whom Israel tortured to death. In my letter to him I address his surgeon’s hands. “May what we mourn propel us toward our collective liberation” — special issue editor Abdelrahman ElGendy arablit.org/dear-dr-adna...

"These letters are not merely an archive, but a call: to not normalize, to not reconcile. To steep in the loss, & let it sharpen us": Abdelrahman ElGendy Explore @arablit.bsky.social's heart-burning issue on GRIEF – and rage. I feel so honoured my letter is part of this 1/ arablit.org/grief/

Please share this call widely. We want everyone to participate in this shared space, for our GRIEF issue, Spring 2025. Some letters will appear in the magazine; many more online.

My translation of Mostafa Ibrahim’s poem, Dialogue, from his masterpiece poetry collection Manifesto—today on @arablit.bsky.social Dialogue is a poem I return to often. Hope it speaks to you as it does to me.

❤️❤️

‎Humbled to share that my work has received the support of the Elizabeth George Foundation. I feel very blessed to be among the last cohort of authors to receive this support, yet sad to see one of the very few major grants for writers since 1998 end. ‎الحمدلله.

For @thenation.com, I wrote about Isabella Hammad's Recognizing the Stranger. What's the worth of a "recognition" born from Western empathy? When agony is the only honest to speak from, how can exile become an ethical stance? And if so, what is home? #BookSky bit.ly/HammadNation

A beautiful, smart piece by @elgendy95.bsky.social about Isabella Hammad's work 👇

For @thenation.com, I wrote about Isabella Hammad's Recognizing the Stranger. What's the worth of a "recognition" born from Western empathy? When agony is the only honest to speak from, how can exile become an ethical stance? And if so, what is home? #BookSky bit.ly/HammadNation

Justin Torres’ Blackouts is a dizzying, most interesting read in both narrative form and hybridity of media. A book that wields erasure to reckon with erasure, reclaiming obliterated narratives in the process. #BookSky

I’ve read the beginning of this memoir & am looking forward to the rest. The world needs to hear @elgendy95.bsky.social’s story of how he was a political prisoner. Alt text: Announcement from Publishers Marketplace, dated December 3, 2024 (continued in thread)

The once-fantasy that sustained me through six years and three months in Egyptian prisons has come to life: my book will be released into our world. 🧵

Nothing warms my heart more than to see former political prisoners reclaim their freedom and flourish despite everything. A beautiful thread and an awaited book. مبروك لعبد الرحمن، والعقبى لأيمن موسى وكل اللي في السجون يا رب.

The once-fantasy that sustained me through six years and three months in Egyptian prisons has come to life: my book will be released into our world. 🧵

@therakha.net’s The Dissenters is an English book where Arabic pulses under each letter. With immaculate craft, symbolism, and a masterful chaos of time, it unfolds an Egyptian woman’s life in spirals across decades to unearth a self, a country, and a revolution lost.