Youssef Rakha
Author of The Book of the Sultan's Seal, The Crocodiles, The Dissenters, and other books
Youssef Rakha’s Latest
"Unflinching in the portrayal of women’s bodies mobilized in protest, The Dissenters is a complex novel about womanhood, political resistance, and personal history.”—Isabella Zhou, Foreword Reviews
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian novelist, poet and essayist working in both Arabic and English.
The Dissenters immortalizes those fallen sons and daughters of Egypt, whose existences are words, lines, and pages in that ongoing love story of revolution
N. S. Ahmed, Bomb Magazine
Reviews
Named a most anticipated book of 2025 by Harper's Bazaar, Literary Hub, and The Millions
Youssef Rakha is the rare writer who is actually paying attention and trying to make sense of the world while many are devolving into despair. The Dissenters creates a world outside the tinted windows of power, even if that means challenging the abyss
Yuri Herrera
Rakha’s project is an admirable and inspired one. . . . Rakha addresses his larger questions—about gender roles, power, and autonomy in the context of Egyptian history—with a startling freshness
Kirkus Reviews