Just before 2025 came to an end, Jahin saw the publication of his most recent collection of vernacular poems, published by Dar Al-Shorouk under the title Hagat Mabtetalsh (“Things That Go Unsaid”).
This marked Jahin’s return to vernacular poetry following his 2022 volume Al-Molk wal-Malek (The Creator and His Universe), a cross-genre work of nearly 700 pages blending poetry, prose, and drama, and driven largely by philosophical reflection.
Things That Go Unsaid almost coincided with the 40th anniversary of Jahin’s writing career, which began in 1986 with his first poetry collection, Al-Kamis Al-Maskoun (The Haunted Shirt).
Over these four decades, poetry has dominated Jahin’s literary output as he forged his own path in a field where his father, Salah Jahin, had left a singular and lasting imprint.
Over the past 25 years, however, Jahin—who closely follows new publications for the reviews he writes regularly in Al-Ahram every Friday—has observed that poetry, both classical and vernacular, has been finding less space for publication, “most likely due to a decreasing interest on the part of readers.”
“I think it is safe to say that during the past 25 years, novels have been at the top,” he said. During this period, he added, a number of impressive literary works have emerged, written by both young men and young women.
“I think of Mariam Abdel-Aziz, whose first novel Honak Haysou Yantahi Al-Nahr (There Where the River Ends) was a really enjoyable and interesting read,” he said.
Published by Kotobkhan in 2022, Abdel-Aziz’s debut novel—under 200 pages—focuses on migration, displacement, and the endless yearning for rootedness.
Jahin also praised Abdel-Aziz’s second novel, Longa, released by Kotobkhan in 2025. The title refers to a form of Arab music characterized by rapid tempo and successive transitions.
The musical reference reflects the dominant sense of suspense that runs throughout the text, which is framed as a crime narrative. At its core, however, Longa revisits the same themes as Abdel-Aziz’s first novel: displacement, death, and the yearning for an anchoring place.
Another novel that caught Jahin’s attention in recent years is Ossama Allam’s Hamel Moftah Al-Madina (He Who Holds the Key to the City), published by Dar Al-Shorouk in 2025.
“Again, this is a novel about the journey of travels and the sense of displacement as people leave their own cities and start moving from one city to the other in an attempt to live, explore and learn,” Jahin said. “Clearly this is a novel that carries the personal experience of the author who has been moving around from Canada to the US and elsewhere,” he added.
“Ultimately, I think we are talking about the journey of life itself,” he added, “with all the realism and mysticism that come with it.”
Overall, Jahin noted that over the past two and a half decades, novels have taken up a much larger share of his newly acquired books, “simply because novels have become far more popular than other literary genres, which has resulted in a greater number of new novels—and new novelists—each year.”
While Jahin devotes a weekly slot in his Al-Ahram column to encountering the works of new writers and reviewing selected titles that catch his attention, he also remains committed to revisiting older books that have stayed with him since he first read them decades ago.
“I can’t get away from One Thousand and One Nights, for example,” he said. While he does not reread the entire collection, widely known in English as The Arabian Nights, Jahin often returns to favourite stories from the medieval cycle, in which Scheherazade recounts tales night after night to entertain King Shahryar and spare her life.
An all-time favourite for Jahin is “The Barber of Baghdad,” a story that navigates young people’s attempts to escape unwanted realities. “It is a smart and fascinating story that has been replicated in many modern versions, in drama, music, and on the silver screen,” he said.
Of particular interest to Jahin is The Barber of Baghdad, the play written by Egyptian playwright Alfred Farag in 1964, at the height of Nasserism and just three years before the June 1967 defeat of Arab armies. Arguably, the play stands as one of the boldest—albeit most indirect—critiques of the political structure and pervasive censorship of the era.
With a clear fondness for substantial volumes, Jahin is unapologetic about his love of the Quran—not only as a sacred text for a practising Muslim, but also as a literary work rich in inspiration. “There are so many fascinating stories out there,” he said.
The story of Ahl Al-Kahf (The People of the Cave), he explained, is not only about young believers persecuted by a tyrant king for worshipping God; it is also a story about the enduring struggle between rulers and the ruled. Jahin noted his admiration for how the prominent Egyptian playwright Tawfik Al-Hakim drew on the tale of the Seven Sleepers in his politically charged play of the same name, published in the early 1930s.
“This seminal play, I think, was one of Al-Hakim’s early introductions of absurdist elements into Egyptian—and Arab—theatre,” Jahin said. Other plays from the same period that he frequently revisits include Al-Sultan Al-Ha’er (The Sultan’s Dilemma), Ya Tala‘a Al-Shagara (The Tree Climber), Ta‘am Lkol Fam (Food for Every Mouth), and Masir Sorsar (The Fate of a Cockroach).
Published between 1960 and 1966, the four plays offer incisive social and political satire of authoritarianism and the manipulation of hunger and basic needs as tools of control and exploitation.
In 1963, when Baha’ Jahin was not yet ten years old, his father—the celebrated vernacular poet, screenwriter, and political cartoonist—collected the quatrains he had been publishing weekly in the popular magazine Sabah El-Kheir. Published together for the first time in a single volume, The Jahin Quartets went on to shape the taste for vernacular poetry for generations, including Baha’ Jahin himself, who belonged to the cohort born in the second half of the 1950s, just a few years after the 1952 Revolution.
With the iconic line “I am the one intrigued by the impossible,” Salah Jahin left an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of millions drawn to life’s contradictions and the hopes and disappointments of politics.
Holding a degree in English and comparative literature, Jahin also maintains a deep engagement with world literature. Among the works that continue to hold his interest are the four great tragedies of William Shakespeare. “There is also Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, which was the first [translated] book that my father gave me in the late 1960s,” he recalled.
In addition to Cervantes’ early-17th-century novel, with its meditation on idealism and chivalry, Jahin retains a strong attachment to two novels by Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov. “I received the Arabic translations of both books as a gift from my mother when I finished preparatory school,” he said.
“There was a time when one didn’t need wealth to access the classics,” Jahin reflected. “It was good to have access to so many books by Egyptian, Arab, and foreign writers.” Today, he added, he still returns to these works, alongside books acquired later in life—from the collected poetry of Mahmoud Darwish to the novels of Egyptian writer Khairy Shalaby, particularly Mawal Al-Bayat wal-Nom (The Long, Sad Song of Sleep and Night), a literary autobiography.
After some reflection, Jahin acknowledged a recurring affinity for works that explore the lives of the oppressed and marginalised. It is, he suggested, an inescapable inclination — shaped by many factors, including the enduring agony of Palestine and the Palestinian people.
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