Youssef Rakha

Youssef Rakha was born in Cairo in 1976. He received a BA in English and Philosophy from Hull University, England, and since then has worked as a writer, copy editor, and cultural editor-cum-literary critic at Al-Ahram Weekly , the Cairo-based English-language newspaper. He was also the founding features writer at the Abu Dhabi-based daily the National . His work has appeared in English in the Daily Telegraph , the New York Times , Parnassus , Aeon Magazine , McSweeney's, and the Kenyon Review...See more

Youssef Rakha was born in Cairo in 1976. He received a BA in English and Philosophy from Hull University, England, and since then has worked as a writer, copy editor, and cultural editor-cum-literary critic at Al-Ahram Weekly , the Cairo-based English-language newspaper. He was also the founding features writer at the Abu Dhabi-based daily the National . His work has appeared in English in the Daily Telegraph , the New York Times , Parnassus , Aeon Magazine , McSweeney's, and the Kenyon Review , among others. He is the author of seven books in Arabic, two of which, The Crocodiles and Book of the Sultan's Seal are available in English. Rakha was chosen as one of the best known and loved new voices of modern Arabic literature at the Hay Festival/Beirut World Book Capital competition, Beirut39, in 2009. See less