But above all, I think, your major achievement is in being what Foucault would call “a discourse initiator” — someone who single handedly changes a discipline, and in this case the discipline of the Arabic novel.
— Anton Shammas on The Book of the Sultan’s Seal
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer of fiction and nonfiction working in Arabic and English. He is the author of the acclaimed novels The Book of the Sultan’s Seal (Interlink, 2014) and The Crocodiles (Seven Stories Press, 2015) as well as Paulo, which was on the long list of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017 and won the 2017 Sawiris Award.
The Dissenters (Graywolf and Peninsula, 2025), his first novel to be written in English, was named a most anticipated book of 2025 by Harper’s Bazaar, LitHub, and The Millions. It was a New Yorker best book of the year and a Dublin Literary Award nominee.
Postmuslim: A Testimony, his debut essay collection, is due for publication with the same two presses in the fall of 2026.
Youssef was among the 39 best Arab writers under 40 selected for the Hay Festival Beirut39 event in 2010. His work has appeared in publications such as The Atlantic, Bomb, The Dial, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Quarterly, GQ Middle East, Guernica, Internazionale, The Kenyon Review, Lettre International, Mada Masr, McSweeney’s, The White Review, and many others. It is widely anthologized and translated.
Youssef is the only child of a disillusioned Marxist and a woman who struggled against incredible odds to go to university. He lives with his own family in Cairo, where he was born and raised. Among other things, he has worked as a photographer, cultural journalist, literary translator, and creative writing coach.
Selected Writing, Credits, Engagement
Excerpt from The Dissenters (Triple Canopy)
Story from Emissaries (Kenyon Review)
Excerpt from Paulo (Asymptote)
Excerpt from The Crocodiles (BOMB)
Excerpt from The Book of the Sultan’s Seal (The Collagist)
Jab, Cross, Infidel (from Postmuslim: A Testimony, Shenandoah)
I, Ghost (from Postmuslim: A Testimony, Guernica)
Requiem for a Suicide Bomber (The Atlantic)
City of Kismet (Aeon)
Foreword to Brains Confounded (Library of Arabic Literature), 2019
Essay in The Ordinary Chaos, 2019 (2024)
Afterword to A Horse at the Door (Tenement Press), 2024
Text of A Face in Time, 2022
Chapter in Pharaoh (British Museum), 2024
Conversation with Hilary Plum (Music and Literature, 2015)
The Rakha 