We know woman is fit to sit at any table, but on the tables of literature, society has welcomed women on the table of romance only. We owe it to the trendsetting women who paved a way to the tables of mystery, crime, detective, and other genres.
While woman is still outnumbered on these tables, we say quality, not quantity. Take Mirna El Mahdy, for starters, who battled the gender stigma at those tables until she spearheaded them. While the literary community in Egypt is hard enough to break through for women, it was even harder for El Mahdy, who at a young age wrote stories that featured blood, gunshots, chemically-planned murders, supernatural detectives, and other gory, indelicate elements.
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Against all odds, Mirna broke the literary gender stigma and became one of the most successful crime novelists in Egypt, with 5 record-breaking novels in less than 3 years (Rock’n’Roll, My Psychopathic Friend, 13, The Investigations of Noah El Alfy: Vol 1. The Case of Bella Donna - Vol 2. The Case of Bitter Almonds).
In a talk with our Egyptian Agatha Christie, she walked us through the mysterious alleys of her journey.
Young Mirna was never a fan of crime in specific; only the captivating Livres-de-Poche by Georges Simenon she devoured from her francophone school curriculum.
“The film-noir type he presented in his books helped me connect to characters on a psychological level, and this connection I did not find any - where else at that time,” Mirna told Layla Magazine. To our surprise, the fantasy genre triggered Mirna’s ardent love for writing, so what caused that shift in taste?
I developed a moderate hemophobia that was haunting me for years.” 13-year-old Mirna did what she did best—she googled her problem, and the search engine gave her the advice of a life-time: write about your fear in a detail-oriented way.
Writing about her blood phobia cracked her eyes open to one thing: she was not afraid of blood; she was scared of the idea that violence can hit unexpectedly, giving her no chance to defend herself. So, she sought refuge in writing crime, a pastime that stood the test of time long after she overcame her fear of blood. As she poured her confusion into her words, she unraveled something.
Crime novels give their writers and readers the sense of justice we seek in real life. And to that fragmented compensation, she held on till this day. And thus, our Agatha Christie was born.
Fast forward to 18-year-old Mirna, who finished the novel that she thought was to be her way in the crime literature table: 13. That’s when she found out that there was no room for a young girl on that table. Instead, she had her first hit as a woman and a writer: “Why don’t you write us a teen drama novel in - stead, and we will publish it.”
Her only consolation was that (13) did not get rejected for its quality but its writer’s gender and age. Doors of the literary world closed one after another until 2019 when her debut novel (The In - Why don’t you write us a teen drama novel instead, and we will publish it. vestigations of Noah El Alfy) found its way to the light and became a bestseller right away. And with that, Mirna brought her chair and sat at the crime table to be the boss of it.
With that triumph, Mirna knew it was time to take (13) out of the drawer after five years of its first disappointment. And just like fine wine, (13) aged well, taking the market by storm.
“I hated how the 50’s perceived women as fair ladies who had no life other than looking after their looks and keeping their voices low as back - ground characters. So, I wrote about a woman serial killer who looked as fair but more vigorous than her looks gave away.”
One book after another, El Mahdy proved herself as a worthy crime novelist with her words getting praise from every reader who enjoys the rollercoaster she puts with her words for us to ride. And now she looks back at her early days trying to get published, proud that she never stuck to writing teen drama. Mirna told Layla her journey lesson in a nutshell when she said:
“Genres are not genders, no girl should be ashamed for liking supposedly-boy-stuff, or belittled for loving cringe romance plots. We should love things for what they mean for us, not for the gender it stands for. Boys read romance shamelessly, and girls write that bloody plot! We are who we are!”


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