Youssef Rakha
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer of fiction and nonfiction working in Arabic and English. The Dissenters, his first novel to be written in English, appeared with Graywolf earlier this year. Postmuslim: A Testimony, a book of essays that includes this essay, is due out with the same press next year. He can be found at therakha.org and on Instagram @therakhahimself.
Reading List
Jab, Cross, Infidel
Maybe people box for the same reasons they join Sufi orders. To transcend their mortal bodies’ smallness. Find discipline, community, purpose.
[In the ledger buried in my breast]
Translated from Arabic by Robin Moger. From Rakha’s collection ولكن قلبي [And yet my heart], a series of prose poems in response to verses by 10th century poet Al Mutanabbi. of all the mountains I have crossed how many saw the mountains, too, in me? of all the seas, how many saw […]
[Forty-four years to learn]
Translated from Arabic by Robin Moger. From Rakha’s collection ولكن قلبي [And yet my heart], a series of prose poems in response to verses by 10th century poet Al Mutanabbi. I would the clouds which now are by me send their lightnings on to him who by him fall the tender rains […]