Karam Youssef: “There are two things in my life that I’m proud of: my husband, Ahmed, and Al Kotob Khan. Al Kotob Khan has been a dream for me since the late 1990s. I have been faithful and sincere to keep it going and in good shape. It’s my contribution to my country.

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.”

Before she became the owner of a Michelin-recommended restaurant in Toronto, Maha Barsoom used to cook and garden as a hobby in Cairo. Raised by a grandmother and parents who were phenomenal cooks, she learned to appreciate the art of food from a young age. Instead of enjoying recess, she would go to the school library, peruse cookbooks for recipes, and reinvent them at home.

"The first thing I [ever] made was chocolate cake with toffee caramel," she remembers in an interview with OkayAfrica. "My aunt visited us from Alexandria, so I prepared it for her. After that, my mom let me go into the kitchen, because it was amazing. I taught myself and observed my family."

In Egypt, opening a restaurant never occurred to her. When she moved to Canada at 35, working as a translator and interpreter while raising two children kept her fully occupied. Once her children, Monica and Mark, graduated from university, she seized her chance.

"I thought if Monica and Mark would assist me, and we could all share this idea, it would be great. They'd both graduated and neither had jobs, so I thought we might as well do this," Barsoom says. "Both of them said no. They will have no life, and it will be extremely difficult. So I left it alone."

Mark was sceptical that non-Egyptians would be willing to try food they did not know, but Barsoom was confident in her craft. "I knew that I had something to offer to society and that I would succeed," she says. As a translator, Barsoom used to attend events that served 'Middle Eastern Food.' "My Egyptian part was really hurt," she laughs. "I needed to teach people about Egyptian cuisine and that there is a big difference between 'Middle Eastern' and Egyptian."

She started posting her cooking online and garnered so much interest that she began operating a catering service from inside her home. Her food's reputation spread, and her children learned from her, until they eventually changed their minds about the restaurant idea.

"[Ten years ago] I was in Egypt, because my mother was sick," remembers Barsoom. "Monica called me, saying, 'I have a surprise for you. We prepared the menu.' It was all the dishes I fed them growing up. My mother was in a stable condition again, so I went back to Canada, and we started looking for a place right away."

The menu includes everything needed for a complete Egyptian brunch, and more. Mixing nostalgic dishes from their childhoods with fan favorites, Maha's Brunch has fūl (fava beans), falafel, homemade feta cheese with tomatoes, basterma sausage, shakshouka, liver sandwiches, and Barsoom's favorite meal growing up: belila (creamy Egyptian wheat porridge ).

"There's a shawarma sandwich I used to eat after university or when the professor didn't show up," says Barsoom. "We'd go to this place called Abu Haidar in Heliopolis, which made the best shawarma ever, in buns, not in pitas or rolls. I was inspired and created Maha's Mindblowing Chicken Sandwich." Monica named it.

In addition to fulfilling her lifelong dream, Barsoom's perseverance eventually paid off in 2022, when a lady came to the restaurant and gifted Barsoom an envelope. In it, she found that Maha's Brunch was recommended in the Michelin Guide for Toronto. She has been featured in the guide every year since.

"Somebody who comes without our knowledge eats the same dish a couple of times," explains Barsoom. "They don't only look at the taste. They look at the service, the cleanliness of the place, and how the dishes are presented and decorated."

Why a mention in the guide and not a star? Maha's Brunch does not serve alcohol or have a white tablecloth service. These requirements are a testament to the enduring hegemony of Western cultural norms. "I don't want to serve alcohol, and I like guests to be at ease when they eat at my place," says Barsoom. "I like them to feel that they are at my dining table in my house."

Now that Barsoom has established her food as one of Toronto's most excellent spots, she is ready to hand the restaurant over to her children. "They are innovative and keen on having everything perfect," she says. "I think they will take the restaurant to a higher level."