The Beam

Curated Selection

Curated multilingual fiction and non-fiction from diverse regions and cultures

I, Omar Amin, was born in Giza, Egypt and raised in modern day Heliopolis. As an Egyptian one comes to see the world in a unique perspective. Historically significant. Geographically centered. Ethnically diverse. For a country ruled by others for thousands of years, it is evident that it is they who became Egyptian, and Egyptians took them in.

Studying for my Bachelor’s degree at the American University in Cairo (AUC) I chose a subject I am most passionate about, Philosophy, and exploring it was divinely rewarding. During this time I would spend months in the deserts and mountains of Sinai practicing philosophy in solitude.

After the Arab Spring I started my first bookstore, The Vanished Library. A social enterprise focused on using book donations to build libraries for free at orphanages, schools, cultural institutes and centers; alongside a bookstore where visitors can buy and exchange books.

In 2018 I moved to the Netherlands to study at Leiden University and soon received my Masters of Arts in Philosophy (Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy of Culture). Since I arrived I would often visit bookstores, new and used, and I would never find a book published from my region, and those that were available were telling a very specific and often negative narrative. I decided to amend that, and so I got the books.

Sun

City