Mai Serhan to Launch ‘Cairo: The Undelivered Letters’ at Tamara Haus

What if Cairo could speak? In Cairo: The Undelivered Letters, Palestinian-Egyptian writer and translator Mai Serhan imagines the city not as backdrop, but as protagonist - a voice composed of longing, memory, and unresolved dialogue. On May 25th, Serhan will bring this voice to life at the launch of her poetry collection at Tamara Haus in Downtown Cairo, in collaboration with Diwan Publishing.

Serhan’s work is shaped by a life lived in the in-between - literally, proverbially and literary: between Palestine and Egypt, the UAE and China, language and translation, exile and belonging. Her letters to Cairo - intimate, fragmented, and often surreal - trace the fault lines of the city and the self.

A graduate of the American University in Cairo and the University of Oxford, where she earned an MSt in Creative Writing, Serhan also studied screenwriting at NYU. Her poetry, essays, and fiction have appeared in The London Magazine, Jadaliyya, Oxford Magazine, Narratively, and ArabLit Quarterly.

In 2018, she translated This Is What Has Come to Be, a collection of Sayyed Darwish’s revolutionary lyrics. Her memoir, I Can Imagine It For Us: A Palestinian Daughter’s Memoir - a finalist for the Narratively Memoir Prize - is forthcoming from AUC Press in 2025.

Serhan’s accolades include the Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Award, the F.H. Pasby Prize for Creative Writing at Oxford, and the Emerging Writer Award from the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods.

The launch will feature a live conversation with MO4 Network founder and writer Amy Mowafi. A signing will follow.

The event begins at 7:30 PM at Tamara Haus, 17 Gawad Hosny Street, Downtown Cairo.