Writer-in-Residence: Mukhtar Shehata (Egypt)

New for 2025, City of Asylum honors its roots as a writer sanctuary with our new “Writer-in-Residence” series, spotlighting the talented artists we host in our residency and the incredible work they produce. This July, meet the newest City of Asylum Writer-in-Residence, Mukhtar Shehata, who recently relocated from Egypt with his family. This will be Mukhtar’s first performance since shedding his pen name, Bo Mima. 

On his time here, Mukhtar reflected, “After my family and I arrived in Pittsburgh, it was the first time in many months that we were able to rest from moving around…Our arrival in Pittsburgh was a return to the spirit of writing.” Both Mukhtar and his wife have completed new works since their arrival and only continue to create more. They are eager to share all they have accomplished with City of Asylum audiences and the world. In this program, Mukhtar will be sharing some of his newly written work, making this second installment of our Writer-in-Residence series all the more exciting. The reading will be made up of three short stories, all of which have been translated into English by Mukhtar (from the original Arabic). Each of the stories honor the relationships he shares with some of the most important people in his life: his father, his mother, and his wife. 

This program is made possible in part with the support of The Bare Life Review, a literary organization supporting immigrant and asylum-seeking writers. The Bare Life Review is a member of Intersection for the Arts, a historic arts nonprofit organization that provides people working in arts and culture with fiscal sponsorship and resources to grow.

About the Artist:

Mukhtar Shehata is a novelist and ethnographer from the Egyptian Delta whose work explores social change, class, gender resistance, and urbanism in rural Egypt. He has published more than 15 books in Arabic, including novels, short stories, and research papers, and his book Diary of an Arab in the Land of the Samiba won the 2019 Ibn Battuta Award for Travel Literature. Mukhtar graduated from the University of Bahia in Brazil and works as a Research Fellow in the Department of Languages, Cultures, and Applied Linguistics at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the newest Writer-in-Residence at City of Asylum Pittsburgh.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant, Cucina Alfabeto, is open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. Please visit Open Table or call 412-435-1111 to make a reservation.