Diwan, the Cairo bookshop that changed how Egypt reads, has crossed the Atlantic. Its Canadian offshoot, Diwan Canada, has just launched an online bookstore stocking a curated selection of titles in Arabic, English and French — and it ships across both Canada and the United States.
This isn't a generic bookseller with a Middle East section bolted on. The collection leans deliberately into voices that mainstream shelves tend to miss: literature and poetry from the Arab world, the wider Southwest Asia and North Africa region, their diasporas, and the Global South. Alongside fiction sit feminist writing, Indigenous perspectives, Black liberation texts and radical thought. If you're the kind of traveller who reads to understand a place before or after visiting, this catalogue is a shortcut.
The online launch is phase one. The bigger plan is a physical bookshop in Montreal, slated to open in 2027 — giving the city's sizeable diaspora communities and curious visitors a dedicated space to browse, browse some more, and talk books. To mark the opening, new subscribers to the mailing list get 10 per cent off their first order.
There's a good backstory here. Diwan was founded in Cairo in 2002 by sisters Nadia and Hind Wassef with their friend Nihal Schawky. Their first shop opened in the leafy Zamalek district on March 8, deliberately timed for International Women's Day. At the time, Egyptian bookshops mostly offered conventional, limited selections; Diwan's multilingual mix of Arabic, English and international titles — plus music, art, children's books and cultural events — was genuinely new for Cairo. The original Zamalek flagship is still worth a detour if you find yourself in the neighbourhood, with good coffee nearby and the Nile a short walk away.
Why does this matter for travellers? Two reasons. First, if you're heading to Egypt, Diwan remains one of Cairo's most pleasant cultural stops — an easy way to pick up English-language writing about the region you're visiting. Second, Montreal 2027 gives culture-focused travellers a fresh reason to revisit a city already rich in bookshops, festivals and francophone-Arab intersections. Until then, the online store means you can build your reading list from home, wherever you are in North America.
Credit: Egyptian Streets
