Fearless and elegant—an uncompromising work from a new author with a mighty voice.
A literary memoir of a teenager who became an adult over seven years spent as a political prisoner in Egypt.
Following the Arab Spring that captured global attention, Egypt churned through power grabs by military leaders and the Muslim Brotherhood. By October 6, 2013, the country was again embroiled in student protests and counterrevolutionary crackdowns, and ElGendy was 17: lover of basketball and rap music, planning to begin his engineering degree, and nursing a budding interest in politics and activism. When he is caught by the police videoing a demonstration in downtown Cairo, he is pulled from the car and arrested with his father, Baba. His debut recounts their subsequent years as “siyasis,” or political prisoners, moved between the progressively inhumane facilities managed by a brutal regime, their legal cases trapped in the bureaucracy, corruption, and self-preservation tactics of the Egyptian government. Inside prison walls, the author forges friendships, studies for his degree, and collaborates with cellmates to create systems for everything from using the bathroom and sharing meals to dispute resolution. ElGendy sculpts his story with reverence for both the craft and the saving power of writing, pulling it taut between demoralizing legal appeals, the ingenuity and solidarity of prisoners, and the shifting poles of what is and is not acceptable in a life lived on the inside. This is the story of oppression by and resistance to a cruel power and an unjust prison sentence, pierced through with the gentle love of a son finding tenderness for his father in a situation riddled with guilt, depravity, and shame. In ElGendy’s masterful hands, his personal history becomes not only a beautiful, artistic expression of deliverance and redemption, but also a heroic clarion call for moral decency and liberation more broadly.
Fearless and elegant—an uncompromising work from a new author with a mighty voice.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2026
ISBN: 9798217153602
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Hogarth
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.
A harrowing expedition to Antarctica, recounted by Departures senior features editor Sancton, who has reported from every continent on the planet.
On Aug. 16, 1897, the steam whaler Belgica set off from Belgium with young Adrien de Gerlache as commandant. Thus begins Sancton’s riveting history of exploration, ingenuity, and survival. The commandant’s inexperienced, often unruly crew, half non-Belgian, included scientists, a rookie engineer, and first mate Roald Amundsen, who would later become a celebrated polar explorer. After loading a half ton of explosive tonite, the ship set sail with 23 crew members and two cats. In Rio de Janeiro, they were joined by Dr. Frederick Cook, a young, shameless huckster who had accompanied Robert Peary as a surgeon and ethnologist on an expedition to northern Greenland. In Punta Arenas, four seamen were removed for insubordination, and rats snuck onboard. In Tierra del Fuego, the ship ran aground for a while. Sancton evokes a calm anxiety as he chronicles the ship’s journey south. On Jan. 19, 1898, near the South Shetland Islands, the crew spotted the first icebergs. Rough waves swept someone overboard. Days later, they saw Antarctica in the distance. Glory was “finally within reach.” The author describes the discovery and naming of new lands and the work of the scientists gathering specimens. The ship continued through a perilous, ice-littered sea, as the commandant was anxious to reach a record-setting latitude. On March 6, the Belgica became icebound. The crew did everything they could to prepare for a dark, below-freezing winter, but they were wracked with despair, suffering headaches, insomnia, dizziness, and later, madness—all vividly capture by Sancton. The sun returned on July 22, and by March 1899, they were able to escape the ice. With a cast of intriguing characters and drama galore, this history reads like fiction and will thrill fans of Endurance and In the Kingdom of Ice.
A rousing, suspenseful adventure tale.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984824-33-2
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.
An epistolary memoir of Nelson Mandela’s prison years.
From August 1962 to February 1990, Mandela (1918-2013) was imprisoned by the apartheid state of South Africa. During his more than 27 years in prison, the bulk of which he served on the notorious Robben Island prison off the shores of Cape Town, he wrote thousands of letters to family and friends, lawyers and fellow African National Congress members, prison officials, and members of the government. Heavily censored for both content and length, letters from Robben Island and South Africa’s other political prisons did not always reach their intended targets; when they did, the censorship could make them virtually unintelligible. To assemble this vitally important collection, Venter (A Free Mind: Ahmed Kathrada's Notebook from Robben Island, 2006, etc.), a longtime Johannesburg-based editor and journalist, pored through these letters in various public and private archives across South Africa and beyond as well as Mandela’s own notebooks, in which he transcribed versions of these letters. The result is a necessary, intimate portrait of the great leader. The man who emerges is warm and intelligent and a savvy, persuasive, and strategic thinker. During his life, Mandela was a loving husband and father, a devotee of the ANC’s struggle, and capable of interacting with prominent statesmen and the ANC’s rank and file. He was not above flattery or hard-nosed steeliness toward his captors as suited his needs, and he was always yearning for freedom, not only—or even primarily—for himself, but rather for his people, a goal that is the constant theme of this collection and was the consuming vision of his entire time as a prisoner. Venter adds tremendous value with his annotations and introductions to the work as a whole and to the book’s various sections.
A valuable contribution to our understanding of one of history’s most vital figures.Pub Date: July 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63149-117-7
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
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