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Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
A gripping, deeply moving memoir of survival, education, and resistance by a student protestor–turned–political prisoner in post-revolution Egypt.
“I will never be the same after reading Huna.” —Javier Zamora
“A beautifully written portrait of a radical political awakening.” —Hanif Abdurraqib
“The work of a truly liberated writer.” —Fady Joudah
“The story of political resistance, survival, and liberation in the face of authoritarianism.”—National Book Award Judges’ Citation
One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Most Anticipated Books of the Year • A Kirkus Reviews Most Anticipated Book
In 2013, seventeen-year-old Abdelrahman ElGendy was a budding student activist in Cairo. Two years after the January 25 revolution, hope for a free Egypt had dissipated; when that summer’s military coup unleashed unprecedented massacres of protesters, Abdelrahman didn’t hesitate—he joined the street movement. His father, fearing for his son’s safety, accompanied him to a mass demonstration. But minutes after they arrived, they were swept up in a brutal police crackdown, and their lives were shattered.
Crushed inside a holding cell, Abdelrahman first heard the words of the Arab world’s most enduring protest song, “Sawfa Nabqa Huna”—We Will Remain Here. He wondered: If no one wanted to remain behind bars, what was the “here” they chose to inhabit?
Abdelrahman would spend the next six years as a political prisoner chasing this Huna, shuffled, alongside his father, from jail cell, to pre-trial detention center, to The Scorpion, Egypt’s most infamous prison complex. As his body broke under the grind of incarceration with no end in sight, he turned to the only refuge left to him: the page. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering while imprisoned, read and wrote voraciously, and, through writing, bore witness.
In his remarkable debut, Abdelrahman offers not a promise of hope, but a provocation. When the very things that can save you—tenderness, family, friendship, language—are used against you, how can you find the courage to love? Huna is a reckoning with what it takes—and what it costs—to remain when erased, and of what endures, perhaps more faithfully, beyond hope.
A gripping, deeply moving memoir of survival, education, and resistance by a student protestor–turned–political prisoner in post-revolution Egypt.
“I will never be the same after reading Huna.” —Javier Zamora
“A beautifully written portrait of a radical political awakening.” —Hanif Abdurraqib
“The work of a truly liberated writer.” —Fady Joudah
“The story of political resistance, survival, and liberation in the face of authoritarianism.”—National Book Award Judges’ Citation
One of Publishers Weekly’s 10 Most Anticipated Books of the Year • A Kirkus Reviews Most Anticipated Book
In 2013, seventeen-year-old Abdelrahman ElGendy was a budding student activist in Cairo. Two years after the January 25 revolution, hope for a free Egypt had dissipated; when that summer’s military coup unleashed unprecedented massacres of protesters, Abdelrahman didn’t hesitate—he joined the street movement. His father, fearing for his son’s safety, accompanied him to a mass demonstration. But minutes after they arrived, they were swept up in a brutal police crackdown, and their lives were shattered.
Crushed inside a holding cell, Abdelrahman first heard the words of the Arab world’s most enduring protest song, “Sawfa Nabqa Huna”—We Will Remain Here. He wondered: If no one wanted to remain behind bars, what was the “here” they chose to inhabit?
Abdelrahman would spend the next six years as a political prisoner chasing this Huna, shuffled, alongside his father, from jail cell, to pre-trial detention center, to The Scorpion, Egypt’s most infamous prison complex. As his body broke under the grind of incarceration with no end in sight, he turned to the only refuge left to him: the page. He earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering while imprisoned, read and wrote voraciously, and, through writing, bore witness.
In his remarkable debut, Abdelrahman offers not a promise of hope, but a provocation. When the very things that can save you—tenderness, family, friendship, language—are used against you, how can you find the courage to love? Huna is a reckoning with what it takes—and what it costs—to remain when erased, and of what endures, perhaps more faithfully, beyond hope.
368 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2026
About the author
Abdelrahman ElGendy
3 books38 followersAbdelrahman ElGendy is an author and translator from Cairo. A winner of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award, he holds an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Pittsburgh, and his work appears in publications including The Washington Post, The Nation, The Baffler, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. His poetry and prose translations from Arabic appear in Ploughshares, Poetry Northwest, Literary Hub, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. ElGendy’s work has received awards or fellowships from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the de Groot Foundation, the Steinbeck Fellowship, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and the Arab American National Museum, among others. Huna is his debut memoir.
You can find Abdelrahman at www.abdelrahmanelgendy.com and on Instagram @abdelrahman_elgendy95
You can find Abdelrahman at www.abdelrahmanelgendy.com and on Instagram @abdelrahman_elgendy95
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 3, 2026
“I bore a multitude of names: terrorist, destabilizer, enemy of the state, threat to national security. Also: habibi, the ripe apple of an eye, the soul of a soul, the softest spot in the heart of a lettuce “ one of the most beautiful written memoirs I have read 😭
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August 17, 2026(I do not rate memoirs.)
This memoir is utterly heartbreaking and incredibly compelling. ElGendy writes beautifully and draws the reader into his experience in a remarkably visceral way. He puts into perspective, the precarious nature of so much of life and so many areas of the world, which should make people in the western world incredibly grateful for the rights that we have. I also became infuriated when ElGendy described his hurried departure from the United States because of the absolute bigotry and ridiculousness of the current administration. I wholeheartedly recommend this memoir.
This memoir is utterly heartbreaking and incredibly compelling. ElGendy writes beautifully and draws the reader into his experience in a remarkably visceral way. He puts into perspective, the precarious nature of so much of life and so many areas of the world, which should make people in the western world incredibly grateful for the rights that we have. I also became infuriated when ElGendy described his hurried departure from the United States because of the absolute bigotry and ridiculousness of the current administration. I wholeheartedly recommend this memoir.
September 7, 2026
Both intensely specific, and broadly human-- a prison memoir about a boy's incarceration and coming of age; and also, a story about national and global mechanisms of power and injustice.
September 8, 2026
A book that would make you laugh while crying and rethinking your entire existnece. Incredibly well-written. A master piece!
I don't think I would ever get over this book, I don't want to. I know it doesn't really change a thing, but I am sorry to all those political prisoners back at home...
"Perhaps there was no light at the end of the tunnel. And in its own twisted way, this hopelessness, like prison itself, liberated."....
I don't think I would ever get over this book, I don't want to. I know it doesn't really change a thing, but I am sorry to all those political prisoners back at home...
"Perhaps there was no light at the end of the tunnel. And in its own twisted way, this hopelessness, like prison itself, liberated."....
September 17, 2026
Devastating, beautiful book 💛 The most powerful I have read this year. Thank you, Gendy.
July 8, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for providing me with an ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.
A breathtaking memoir written by a former political prisoner in Egypt, “Huna” is so much more than just that. An elegy to the human experience, a love song to those who hope against hope for a better world, a declaration that injustice and inhumanity will not have the final world.
I have no words for how achingly beautiful and devastating this book is. Thank you Abdelrahman for sharing this piece of yourself with the world. I am honoured to have read it and I hope it will be held and carried by others with as much tenderness as it was created with.
A breathtaking memoir written by a former political prisoner in Egypt, “Huna” is so much more than just that. An elegy to the human experience, a love song to those who hope against hope for a better world, a declaration that injustice and inhumanity will not have the final world.
I have no words for how achingly beautiful and devastating this book is. Thank you Abdelrahman for sharing this piece of yourself with the world. I am honoured to have read it and I hope it will be held and carried by others with as much tenderness as it was created with.
September 13, 2026
“We will stay here .. so the pain ceases
We will live here .. the melody will sweeten
My homeland, my homeland .. home of pride
My homeland, my homeland, my self.
“Let’s all stand together .. With remedy and pen
We are all merciful on those who suffer sickness
Let’s continue to walk towards higher aims
And be a truly better nation among nations”
These are some of the lyrics from the song, “Sawfa Nabqa Huna,” written in 2005 in Libya as a protest song against Muhammar Gadaffi. It was heard again in Egypt during the 2013. And it is being sung again today by Palestinians. The title of this book, Huna, means “home,” and in Abdelrahman ElGendy’s extraordinary memoir, home means many things: your family, your country, the semblance of home that is formed by prisoners incarcerated together, and, most compellingly, the home you must find within yourself no mater the circumstances.
ElGendy was arrested in 2013 at the age of 17 during a protest. Because his father was driving, they arrested him too. His father was released after 3 years, but Abdelrahman was held for over six years. During those years he lived with the deprivation and cruelty one would expect in such a situation (his first request after being freed was to use the bathroom alone), but cruelty, while omnipresent, is not the focus of this memoir. Using beautiful, almost poetic language, ElGendy talks eloquently of his love for family, friends in and outside of prison, and the emotional transformation that he experienced.
ElGendy does not dwell on politics, although he does have some harsh but honest thoughts about the United States and its role in the world. Even so, I believe that this book should be required reading for anyone who wishes to better understand the turmoil that is now spreading across the globe. We don’t often hear this intimate detail from an Arabic Muslim point of view. Although ElGendy is Egyptian, he is very conversant with American popular culture and many times quotes Taylor Swift or a line from Harry Potter. He also intersperses Arabic words in the narrative - sometimes translating them, sometimes not. And he writes. He writes and writes, and the writing becomes so important to him that even though he earns a degree in mechanical engineering while in prison, he goes back to school to study nonfiction writing. It’s hard to express what an important voice I think he is. Abdelrahman ElGendy is a person whose words are important for us all to hear.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth/Random House for allowing me to read this book. All opinions are my own.
We will live here .. the melody will sweeten
My homeland, my homeland .. home of pride
My homeland, my homeland, my self.
“Let’s all stand together .. With remedy and pen
We are all merciful on those who suffer sickness
Let’s continue to walk towards higher aims
And be a truly better nation among nations”
These are some of the lyrics from the song, “Sawfa Nabqa Huna,” written in 2005 in Libya as a protest song against Muhammar Gadaffi. It was heard again in Egypt during the 2013. And it is being sung again today by Palestinians. The title of this book, Huna, means “home,” and in Abdelrahman ElGendy’s extraordinary memoir, home means many things: your family, your country, the semblance of home that is formed by prisoners incarcerated together, and, most compellingly, the home you must find within yourself no mater the circumstances.
ElGendy was arrested in 2013 at the age of 17 during a protest. Because his father was driving, they arrested him too. His father was released after 3 years, but Abdelrahman was held for over six years. During those years he lived with the deprivation and cruelty one would expect in such a situation (his first request after being freed was to use the bathroom alone), but cruelty, while omnipresent, is not the focus of this memoir. Using beautiful, almost poetic language, ElGendy talks eloquently of his love for family, friends in and outside of prison, and the emotional transformation that he experienced.
ElGendy does not dwell on politics, although he does have some harsh but honest thoughts about the United States and its role in the world. Even so, I believe that this book should be required reading for anyone who wishes to better understand the turmoil that is now spreading across the globe. We don’t often hear this intimate detail from an Arabic Muslim point of view. Although ElGendy is Egyptian, he is very conversant with American popular culture and many times quotes Taylor Swift or a line from Harry Potter. He also intersperses Arabic words in the narrative - sometimes translating them, sometimes not. And he writes. He writes and writes, and the writing becomes so important to him that even though he earns a degree in mechanical engineering while in prison, he goes back to school to study nonfiction writing. It’s hard to express what an important voice I think he is. Abdelrahman ElGendy is a person whose words are important for us all to hear.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth/Random House for allowing me to read this book. All opinions are my own.
September 10, 2026
Thank you to Hogarth and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review
Abdelrahman ElGendy was on the cusp of eighteen when, one day in 2013, he asked his father to drive by a political protest on their way to visit his grandmother. A simple and spontaneous decision to stick his hand out the car window to film the protest with his phone led to both father and son’s lives being upended forever.
In HUNA, his memoir and debut, the monstrously talented ElGendy takes readers deep into the bowels of the Egyptian political prison system and a soul that desperately tries to fight to live during all those lost years of his youth.
Come for the fiery premise, stay for the phenomenal writing. I know that he (deservedly so) has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing, but I still declare that some people are simply born with poetry running through every vein in their body, and ElGendy is one of those. His way with words takes us right alongside him every step of the way.
With him, we are shattered by the confusing maelstrom of violence that Egyptian’s authoritarian government uses to sweep himself and others into prison. We, too, learn the unofficial hierarchies of the prison operating system, when to speak with cream and when with thunder to survive.
With him, we cringe at the disgusting and claustrophobic conditions of one prison after another, 60-plus men crammed into a cell so small that only half of them can sleep (sitting, not lying down) at any given time, while the remaining half stand on one leg to leave enough floor space for the sleepers. We, too, learn never to become too attached to belongings that could be confiscated at any time; to befriend cobwebs; and to not bat an eye as we cram our entire arm down the pipe of the cell “toilet” in a desperate bid to hide a contraband phone.
ElGendy’s writing is memorable not only because he is artistic, but because he is willing to be completely vulnerable for us. As HUNA progresses, the crisp details of prison life and treatment fade as he struggles to hold on to ever-smaller parts of himself. ElGendy writes of losing his eyes, his hands, his ears, his sense of smell, and more to the sense of utter despair that is political incarceration. If reading ElGendy’s account of how he slowly but steadily fell apart in prison doesn’t inspire a rage in you at the fact that anyone, anywhere in the world should experience anything like this—especially in this century—I don’t know what will. And as he rightly mentions at the end: "free Palestine, where all roads lead" .
I do wish I had gotten a bit more historical context about Egyptian’s political situation, but I also respect that that is not this memoir’s responsibility, and that is something I will seek out myself. HUNA is devastating, in the way that the writings of Adania Shibli, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Kaveh Akbar are. A must-read if any of this sounds like writing that you’re moved by.
Abdelrahman ElGendy was on the cusp of eighteen when, one day in 2013, he asked his father to drive by a political protest on their way to visit his grandmother. A simple and spontaneous decision to stick his hand out the car window to film the protest with his phone led to both father and son’s lives being upended forever.
In HUNA, his memoir and debut, the monstrously talented ElGendy takes readers deep into the bowels of the Egyptian political prison system and a soul that desperately tries to fight to live during all those lost years of his youth.
Come for the fiery premise, stay for the phenomenal writing. I know that he (deservedly so) has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing, but I still declare that some people are simply born with poetry running through every vein in their body, and ElGendy is one of those. His way with words takes us right alongside him every step of the way.
With him, we are shattered by the confusing maelstrom of violence that Egyptian’s authoritarian government uses to sweep himself and others into prison. We, too, learn the unofficial hierarchies of the prison operating system, when to speak with cream and when with thunder to survive.
With him, we cringe at the disgusting and claustrophobic conditions of one prison after another, 60-plus men crammed into a cell so small that only half of them can sleep (sitting, not lying down) at any given time, while the remaining half stand on one leg to leave enough floor space for the sleepers. We, too, learn never to become too attached to belongings that could be confiscated at any time; to befriend cobwebs; and to not bat an eye as we cram our entire arm down the pipe of the cell “toilet” in a desperate bid to hide a contraband phone.
ElGendy’s writing is memorable not only because he is artistic, but because he is willing to be completely vulnerable for us. As HUNA progresses, the crisp details of prison life and treatment fade as he struggles to hold on to ever-smaller parts of himself. ElGendy writes of losing his eyes, his hands, his ears, his sense of smell, and more to the sense of utter despair that is political incarceration. If reading ElGendy’s account of how he slowly but steadily fell apart in prison doesn’t inspire a rage in you at the fact that anyone, anywhere in the world should experience anything like this—especially in this century—I don’t know what will. And as he rightly mentions at the end: "free Palestine, where all roads lead" .
I do wish I had gotten a bit more historical context about Egyptian’s political situation, but I also respect that that is not this memoir’s responsibility, and that is something I will seek out myself. HUNA is devastating, in the way that the writings of Adania Shibli, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Kaveh Akbar are. A must-read if any of this sounds like writing that you’re moved by.
September 6, 2026
5 stars
Wow, this was a very powerful read and it will likely stay with me for a long time. I had this book on my radar after someone on instagram did a post about upcoming books. When I went to the bookstore last week I saw the physical book and got it.
This book is the author’s story of when he was 17 years old and how he was picked up by the policy and arrested along with his dad for filming a protest. What he thought was going to be just an overnight stay turns into 6 years in prison and this book details what happened during that time and the brutal treatment he and his dad endure. Despite the pretty grim conditions he was able to finish his engineering degree and teach others Arabic and other topics.
I was completely unfamiliar with the political situation in Egypt and this book offered a glimpse on that. There is a lot of corruption and of course the US has a hand in keeping the current regimen in power.
I highly recommend a physical copy or the ebook because this book had several Arabic words I was unfamiliar with it and I was able to google them.
Wow, this was a very powerful read and it will likely stay with me for a long time. I had this book on my radar after someone on instagram did a post about upcoming books. When I went to the bookstore last week I saw the physical book and got it.
This book is the author’s story of when he was 17 years old and how he was picked up by the policy and arrested along with his dad for filming a protest. What he thought was going to be just an overnight stay turns into 6 years in prison and this book details what happened during that time and the brutal treatment he and his dad endure. Despite the pretty grim conditions he was able to finish his engineering degree and teach others Arabic and other topics.
I was completely unfamiliar with the political situation in Egypt and this book offered a glimpse on that. There is a lot of corruption and of course the US has a hand in keeping the current regimen in power.
I highly recommend a physical copy or the ebook because this book had several Arabic words I was unfamiliar with it and I was able to google them.
September 14, 2026
I'm in awe of this memoir. ElGendy's writing is so vividly lush and poetic which provides such a stark contrast to the violence of his story. For me, the book's title, "Huna", beautifully captures the the density of ElGendy's story as he reflects on his time growing up in an environment he should not have been in. The explorations surrounding survival through relationships, conviction, and humanity were so powerful.
This book tackles political incarceration and violence and what it not only can do to an individual, but to a whole family and community.
This book tackles political incarceration and violence and what it not only can do to an individual, but to a whole family and community.
September 13, 2026
Abdelrahman ElGendy’s “Huna” is an upsetting memoir, but not without moments of uplift. At its heart is a story of injustice, fascism, resilience, family, and, most importantly, the ways in which an essentially mainstream young man can be radicalized by the circumstances surrounding him. Much of the memoir takes place within Egypt’s prison system between 2013 and 2019, during the turbulent period of revolution, military coup, and the government’s increasingly authoritarian effort to suppress revolutionary movements and ideas.
What is particularly disturbing is ElGendy’s implicit demonstration that repression can produce precisely the opposite of what those in power intend. Young people suspected of revolutionary activity are thrown together under brutal conditions, subjected to arbitrary imprisonment and abuse, and then released having become more alienated and radicalized than when they entered. The prison system becomes less an instrument of rehabilitation than a mechanism for creating deeper opposition to the regime.
Yet ElGendy also finds surprising evidence of human resilience within this bleak environment. Prisoners develop their own systems of self-government and ingenious ways of circumventing restrictions. A few guards demonstrate compassion. Reading, education, writing, and other forms of creative expression provide ways of preserving a sense of self. Most important, family members remain a vital source of love, support, and connection to a normal life beyond the prison walls.
The memoir becomes especially frightening after ElGendy’s release. Fearing that he might be arrested again, his family urges him first to Lebanon and eventually to America, where he pursues a newly discovered passion for writing. But America does not provide the refuge he had hoped for. He encounters forms of repression and political hostility that remind him unsettlingly of what he experienced in Egypt. By the end, he has become a man both hunted and haunted, uncertain where he can safely call home.
“Huna” ultimately offers a sobering picture of what happens when governments respond to youthful dissent with fear and force rather than engagement. Its small moments of humanity provide some hope, but the larger message is deeply troubling: the world as it exists today seems to offer remarkably little security or promise to young people like ElGendy who seek freedom, justice, and a place to belong.
What is particularly disturbing is ElGendy’s implicit demonstration that repression can produce precisely the opposite of what those in power intend. Young people suspected of revolutionary activity are thrown together under brutal conditions, subjected to arbitrary imprisonment and abuse, and then released having become more alienated and radicalized than when they entered. The prison system becomes less an instrument of rehabilitation than a mechanism for creating deeper opposition to the regime.
Yet ElGendy also finds surprising evidence of human resilience within this bleak environment. Prisoners develop their own systems of self-government and ingenious ways of circumventing restrictions. A few guards demonstrate compassion. Reading, education, writing, and other forms of creative expression provide ways of preserving a sense of self. Most important, family members remain a vital source of love, support, and connection to a normal life beyond the prison walls.
The memoir becomes especially frightening after ElGendy’s release. Fearing that he might be arrested again, his family urges him first to Lebanon and eventually to America, where he pursues a newly discovered passion for writing. But America does not provide the refuge he had hoped for. He encounters forms of repression and political hostility that remind him unsettlingly of what he experienced in Egypt. By the end, he has become a man both hunted and haunted, uncertain where he can safely call home.
“Huna” ultimately offers a sobering picture of what happens when governments respond to youthful dissent with fear and force rather than engagement. Its small moments of humanity provide some hope, but the larger message is deeply troubling: the world as it exists today seems to offer remarkably little security or promise to young people like ElGendy who seek freedom, justice, and a place to belong.
September 7, 2026
Huna: A Memoir of Revolution, Prison, and Becoming is Abdelrahman ElGendy's story about his experience being incarcerated at the age of 17 for being part of a protest against the authoritarian government in Egypt. Watching the protest from a distance, he and his father were swept up in the police enforcement and arrested for participating. The book not only tells of the more than six years he spent in prison, it also talks about escaping Egypt and then having to again watch as the scene repeats itself in the United States.
His writing is deep and reflective, giving you a sense of what is was like to be there - not knowing what lay ahead in your future.
I was drawn to this book because I have friends in Egypt. This is not something I can talk to them about - for their own safety, conversations about politics are off limits. Unfortunately, this is also becoming a concern with United States - again conversations about politics are not safe. It is something that we, in Canada, enjoy the freedom to write or speak about such things.
I found that once I got past the first chapter I could not put the book down. ElGendy is an incredibly good writer, sharing not just the descriptions of his experience but also the emotional toll on his mental health. I was especially interested in the aspects of community that formed among the prisoners - with visiting family supporting the entire cell blocks, not just their kin. The acts of sharing in a world where everyone has little is a lesson that so many people could learn.
Huna is an important book because it sheds light on the randomness and unfairness of living in a world where autocratic governments have control, and the courts are not places of safety or justice.
His writing is deep and reflective, giving you a sense of what is was like to be there - not knowing what lay ahead in your future.
I was drawn to this book because I have friends in Egypt. This is not something I can talk to them about - for their own safety, conversations about politics are off limits. Unfortunately, this is also becoming a concern with United States - again conversations about politics are not safe. It is something that we, in Canada, enjoy the freedom to write or speak about such things.
I found that once I got past the first chapter I could not put the book down. ElGendy is an incredibly good writer, sharing not just the descriptions of his experience but also the emotional toll on his mental health. I was especially interested in the aspects of community that formed among the prisoners - with visiting family supporting the entire cell blocks, not just their kin. The acts of sharing in a world where everyone has little is a lesson that so many people could learn.
Huna is an important book because it sheds light on the randomness and unfairness of living in a world where autocratic governments have control, and the courts are not places of safety or justice.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you to NetGalley and Hogarth for this ARC.
Huna took my breath away. I'm in awe of Abdelrahman ElGendy's ability to transform unimaginably painful experiences into a memoir that is both gut-wrenching and deeply beautiful. A former political prisoner in Egypt, ElGendy writes with remarkable clarity and compassion, creating a powerful testament to hope, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
Unapologetically honest, Huna immerses readers in the daily realities of political imprisonment: the brutality, the uncertainty, and the small acts of resistance that make survival possible. ElGendy doesn't shy away from the physical and emotional toll of incarceration, yet he never lets despair overshadow the humanity of those who endured it.
Beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure, this memoir stands as a reminder of both humanity's capacity for cruelty and its equally remarkable capacity for perseverance. Sadly, its message remains painfully relevant, as political imprisonment continues to be used as a tool of oppression around the world.
ElGendy never owed the world his story, and I am deeply grateful that he chose to share it. His vulnerability and generosity make Huna not only an unforgettable memoir, but one that I believe deserves to be widely read.
Huna took my breath away. I'm in awe of Abdelrahman ElGendy's ability to transform unimaginably painful experiences into a memoir that is both gut-wrenching and deeply beautiful. A former political prisoner in Egypt, ElGendy writes with remarkable clarity and compassion, creating a powerful testament to hope, resilience, and the enduring strength of the human spirit.
Unapologetically honest, Huna immerses readers in the daily realities of political imprisonment: the brutality, the uncertainty, and the small acts of resistance that make survival possible. ElGendy doesn't shy away from the physical and emotional toll of incarceration, yet he never lets despair overshadow the humanity of those who endured it.
Beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure, this memoir stands as a reminder of both humanity's capacity for cruelty and its equally remarkable capacity for perseverance. Sadly, its message remains painfully relevant, as political imprisonment continues to be used as a tool of oppression around the world.
ElGendy never owed the world his story, and I am deeply grateful that he chose to share it. His vulnerability and generosity make Huna not only an unforgettable memoir, but one that I believe deserves to be widely read.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Heart-achingly beautiful.
As I read this memoir, I often found myself forgetting that I was reading a real story. I became so completely absorbed that it felt like I had been pulled into a novel, and then, every so often, I had to remind myself that these were real lives, real experiences, real pain. I’d have to stop, take a breath, and step back from the emotional tug of the story.
ElGendy has an extraordinary mastery of words and languages. Somehow, he manages to use them to punch a hole straight through your chest and, at the very same time, wrap you in a warm hug. I honestly don’t know how else to describe it.
I don’t consider myself a critic or a professional reviewer. I simply know how a book makes me feel, and this is one of those rare books that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it, lingering in your mind, settling somewhere deep in your heart. It’s the kind of story you carry with you.
As I read this memoir, I often found myself forgetting that I was reading a real story. I became so completely absorbed that it felt like I had been pulled into a novel, and then, every so often, I had to remind myself that these were real lives, real experiences, real pain. I’d have to stop, take a breath, and step back from the emotional tug of the story.
ElGendy has an extraordinary mastery of words and languages. Somehow, he manages to use them to punch a hole straight through your chest and, at the very same time, wrap you in a warm hug. I honestly don’t know how else to describe it.
I don’t consider myself a critic or a professional reviewer. I simply know how a book makes me feel, and this is one of those rare books that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading it, lingering in your mind, settling somewhere deep in your heart. It’s the kind of story you carry with you.
July 10, 2026
This is a powerful memoir that came into my life at a time when I was facing uncertainty and challenge after challenge. I can’t imagine what the author endured firsthand. He could have allowed those experiences to defeat him, but instead he used them as stepping stones for growth and resilience. His story is both inspiring and humbling. We need more people with his strength and perspective. If you’re looking for encouragement and a reminder that it’s possible to overcome adversity, I highly recommend this book. It left me believing that, with determination and perseverance, we can accomplish far more than we often think possible.a big thanks to Net Galley for allowing me read it early!
September 14, 2026
abdelrahman elgendy has a very important story to tell, and i was glad that his experience being imprisoned has been recorded i this book. one thing that stood out as lacking for me was hearing more about his beliefs as it relates to egypt, politics, and the things he stands for. you are given a fantastic account of his experiences in prison, but i left wanting more of what the very end of the book contained- and that was a passionate expression of what he stands for. i was also slightly thrown off by the numerous harry potter references throughout, they felt slightly misplaced, and odd. huna was a very fitting title, and a beautiful word that i now associate with hope and steadfastness that elgendy maintained.
August 18, 2025
This riveting, extraordinary work communicates the literal experience of being a political prisoner within the emotional life of injustice. Abdelrahman's ELGendy brings us closer to the physical suffering, intellectual hunger, the deep friendships, the modes of survival, the petty brutalities of state players- not only of the regime of Egypt's General Sissi, but of its resonances today in the United States.
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