Mohsen Mohamed: Who will help when no one speaks up?
– Egypt
Mohsen Mohamed (* 1994) is an Egyptian poet. His poetry collection No One Is on the Line (د يب رقم ش مف) was published in 2020 by Dar El Meraya. It won first prize for vernacular poetry at the Cairo International Book Fair and the Sawiris Cultural Award.
In 2014, during the riots following a student demonstration (in which he did not participate), he was caught up in a mass arrest on a university campus when he rushed to the aid of a young woman. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and it was there that he wrote the collection No One Is on the Line, for which he received two of Egypt’s most prestigious literary awards. His poems tell of dislocation and heartbreak, of found and newly formed community, of the bare outlines of humanity as it reveals itself in the face of suffering.