Medhat Ghabrial joined us for a conversation about his migration story and his new book, A Bar on Adly Street: An Egyptian Memoir (Friesen Press, 2022). He also shared insights into the social and political climate in Egypt which inspired a broader generational disenchantment, leading many to choose emigration to the Americas and Europe.
From the publisher: “A Bar on Adly Street is an unflinching first-hand account of an in-between generation in 1970s Egypt whose fathers cherished secular democracy and religious tolerance, while they faced poverty, tyranny, fanaticism and corruption. It carefully layers strata of a life that examines the circumstances that lead to a nation turning against its defenseless minorities. Remnants of Greeks, and Italians, then Copts and even Muslims not subscribing to the MB’s Islamist agenda, all reeling under the new norms and the changing world around them, leaving them with no choice but to run away from home in droves, creating the schism in which the present narrative is at its centre.”
Medhat Ghabrial is a retired structural engineer who earned a PhD in Engineering from Windsor University after emigrating from Egypt in 1974. He was also an adjunct professor at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, and published design manuals for structural engineers and graduate students in Canada. Ghabrial is a natural storyteller who enjoys travelling, writing short stories, and watching English football. He has two adult daughters and lives in Windsor, Ontario.
This is the eighteenth installment in a series of interviews with artists, academics, activists, and other migrants of Egypt around the world. Check out previous conversations in the series and stay tuned for our next installment.
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