Abdelrahman ElGendy is an Egyptian writer and human rights activist based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a six-year political prisoner in Egypt between 2013 and 2020. Arrested at 17 and released at 24, Abdelrahman started and earned a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from Ain Shams University while in prison.  

 

Abdelrahman is a Dietrich fellow at the University of Pittsburgh's Nonfiction Writing MFA, a Heinz fellow at Pitt's Global Studies Center, a 2023 Tin House Scholar, an awardee of the 2023 Katharine Bakeless Nason Award in Nonfiction at Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a 2021 Logan Nonfiction fellow, and a finalist for the 2021 Margolis Award for Social Justice Journalism.

His writing appears in the Washington Post, New Lines Magazine, the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), Mada Masr, Raseef 22, AlManassa, and elsewhere.  

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Abdelrahman's work is engaged with counter-narratives of history, the role of writing and art as forms of resistance, and how the oppressed preserve their identities in the face of erasure.

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Abdelrahman advocates for the release of Egyptian political prisoners both in Egypt and abroad. He collaborates with international human rights organizations in campaigns and delivers talks on his story and the plight of Egyptian political prisoners. 

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He is represented by Jin Auh of the Wylie Agency.