Author Mahmud El Sayed on Arab Representation in Sci Fi

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]My name's Mahmoud El Sayed. I'm the author of the Republic of Memory, an Arab futurist science fiction novel set on a generation ship and inspired by the real world events of the Arab Spring.

[00:00:11]So, I try and define Arab futurism as broadly as possible. It's something that exists in the kind [music] of intersection of science fiction and Middle Eastern aesthetics. So, that includes language and technology and religion even. One of the things that stuck with me was the lack of Arab representation in science fiction.

[00:00:30][music] You must never see Arab characters or even Arab actors in any of these TV shows or books. There are a lot of Middle Eastern writers [music] and writers of Middle Eastern descent writing in genre fiction and in in fantasy and horror and romance see, but I think one of the only ones writing in science fiction. I think it's important that we write in science fiction, that we kind of reach out and take and claim ground and we tell our stories in the future. It's an act of resistance, an act of hope. So, I was interested [music] in kind of including representation of just normal Middle Eastern people, people of different faiths, people of different ethnicities, people speaking [music] different languages. And I think science fiction gives you an opportunity to look to the future, to talk about contemporary problems maybe without [music] crossing some red lines that we have in our region and to imagine ourselves and our stories in the future.

[00:01:21]Yeah, it's really important for us to be able to visualize our own future, our own culture. I mean, you could argue that Arab futurism exists today. [music] It's the buy, it's you know, wars in the Middle East, it's drones above our cities. So, I think it's important that we visualize a much more positive, [music] a much more authentic future for ourselves in our storytelling. Everyone needs their representation. Arabic is an interesting language. Someone speaking for some classical Arabic [music] could converse with someone like a thousand years ago uh and hopefully a thousand years in the future. The Republic of Memory is set in a kind of post AI world. One group can be on top for a little while and then another group comes over and takes over. In the Middle East, we're in a kind [music] of post-colonial state now. We've overthrown the empires that used to rule us, and we're in a post-revolutionary republic states that are now that are [music] also being overthrown, and that's kind of where the ship is at as well. I think it's important that we reach out and claim ground and take ground and tell our stories in the future, and I'm hoping that I'm not the only one. I'm hoping that this kind of starts other writers doing some of the same things, but I think we need more in this space, and I'm hoping to see more in this space.