An Egyptian writer, critic, and translator, Mohamed Hashem Abdel Salam has worked across literary, critical, journalistic, artistic, and translation fields for over thirty years. For nearly a decade, he has participated as a professional critic and journalist covering major international film festivals including Berlin, Thessaloniki, Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Venice, and others. He has served on selection and nomination committees for several Arab and international film festivals, such as the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, Cairo International Film Festival, and El Gouna Film Festival.

His publications include the novel A Fleeting Shell (2000), The House of Mirrors (2002), Dialogues with Icons of European Cinema (2006), Forms of American Silence: The Realism of James Agee, Walker Evans, and Edward Hopper (2006), and A Place Immersed in Privacy: Borges, Cortázar, Saramago, Paul Bowles, Paul Auster (2006), among many others. In 2024, he published his translation of I Film as I Breathe — Conversations with Theo Angelopoulos with Jusoor Al-Thaqafa Publishing and Distribution.