Khaled Mansour

  • Writer
  • Journalist
  • Novelist

A writer and analyst with 30 years of experience. As a journalist and then a UN spokesperson, he worked for years in conflict and transitional situations such as in South Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Sudan in addition to reporting on US politics in Washington DC in the 1990s and South Africa end of Apartheid in the early 1990s. Before he became a full-time writer in 2015, he was the Executive Director of Egypt’s leading human rights organization, EIPR (2013-2014). He published eight books, mostly in Arabic. His debut novel, “A Minefield” and his memoirs on Afghanistan, “From Taliban to Taliban” appeared in 2022, “From Fear to Freedom” in early 2023 and “The Memory of October: The representations of War in Egyptian Culture” (editor) in 2024.

Selections

Minefield (Arabic Novel)

The novel draws the reader into the world of Cairo as a seductive, tired, and harsh city, full of promises, menace, dreams, and nightmares, where the past, with trembling hands, strangulates a present struggling to escape and survive with no clear exist in sight. Will Khalil survive and manage to cross a field of mines that explode underneath him one after another? And will he, with the help of love and friendship, be able to tame the demons that have always haunted him, or at least learn to live with them?

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“Khalil did not expect that the journey would, step by step, destroy what remained of his illusions about his work, his marriage, his friendships, and his romantic relationships.”

Articles

How Music and Painting Can Help Syria Heal and Move On

Published 5 April 2025 in the EU Observer and co-authored with Petra Stienen “In the trash-strewn zigzagging streets of Al Husseiniya, a slum less than 15km south of Damascus, Ahmad Bakr walks with his Oud strung on his shoulder on his way to a small apartment where he runs a music school. Al Husseiniya is […]

A New Season in Damascus

Time for the UN to Check Out of the Four Seasons As Geir Pedersen, the UN envoy to Syria, left the abandoned Sednaya prison near Damascus, a woman spat in his direction and threw her shoes at his car — a gesture of deep disrespect and disdain in the Middle East. Prior to the collapse of the Assad […]

Interviews

Interview with Bulaq Books

Published on 11 April 2025 Ursula Lindsey, co-author of Bulaq Books podcast, introduced this episode on 8 May 2025: “We had the great pleasure to do an episode of @bulaqbooks with old friend (and accomplished writer) Khaled Mansour. Khaled walked us through his recent exploration of Arab women’s autobiograpichal writing, a journey that began with his […]

On AI, ads and regulations

Watch it here Wearing my social media hat and pontificating about AI and the need for global regulations at the #WebSummitQatar

Books