Books Published
Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian novelist, poet and essayist working in both Arabic and English.
Rakha accomplishes that masterful “task of the translator” proposed by Walter Benjamin. The task, to summarize the latter thinker’s well-known essay, is an attentiveness to form, rhythm, and structures, all the while searching for the radical intent of the text.
— Nazar Andary
The Dissenters, Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2025. ISBN 978-1-64445-319-3; London: Peninsula Pres. ISBN 978-1-91351-267-5
Innaka dhahib ila al bar (Arabic: إنك ذاهب إلى البار; You Are Going to the Bar), novella, Milano: Almutawassit, 2024. ISBN 979-1-2559-1029-9
Emissaries, short stories, London: Barakunan, 2023. ISBN 978-1-3999-3363-6
Walakinna Qalbi: Ma ba'd al Mutanabbi (Arabic: ولكن قلبي: ما بعد المتنبي; And Yet My Heart: Post Mutanabbi), essays and poems, with illustrations by Walid Taher, Dammam: Dar Athar, 2022. ISBN 978-603-91904-5-5
Walakinna Qalbi: Mutanabbi al Alfiya al Thalitha (Arabic: ولكن قلبي: متنبي الألفية الثالثة; And Yet My Heart: Third Millennium Mutanabbi), 20 poems and a personal essay, with illustrations by Walid Taher (on a grant from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture), Cairo-Beirut-Tunis: Dar Al-Tanwir, 2021. ISBN 978-977-828-060-9
Barra and Zaman: Reading Egyptian Modernity in Shadi Abdel Salam’s The Mummy, essay, Palgrave Macmillan (Pivot): Arab Cinema Series, 2020. ISBN 978-3-030-61353-2
Arab Porn, essay (ebook only), 60Pages (long-form collective), 2016. ASIN B01J4YMPZK. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2017. ISBN 978-3-95757-382-7
Paolo (Arabic: باولو), novel, Cairo-Beirut-Tunis: Dar Al-Tanwir, 2016. ISBN 978-977648-358-3
The Crocodiles (Arabic: التماسيح), novel, Beirut: Dar Al-Saqi, 2013. ISBN 978-1-85516-878-7. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2015. ISBN 978-160980-571-5
The Book of the Sultan’s Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars (Arabic: كتاب الطغرى: غرائب التاريخ في مدينة المريخ), novel, Cairo: Dar Al-Shorouk, 2011. ISBN 978-9-77092-988-9. Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 2018. ISBN 978-6-14419-868-1. USA: Interlink, 2015. ISBN 978-1-56656-916-3. Geneva: Éditions Zoé, 2016. ISBN 978-2-88927-378-2
Yadhhar malak (Arabic: يظهر ملاك; An Angel Appears), poems, ebook only, 2011
Kull amakinina (Arabic: كل أماكننا; All Our Places), poems and essays, Cairo: Dar Al-Ain, 2010. ISBN 978-9-77490-022-8
Shamal al qahira gharb al filibbin (Arabic: شمال القاهرة غرب الفلبين; North of Cairo, West of the Philippines), travel essays, Beirut: Riyad El-Rayyes, 2009. ISBN 978-9-95321-422-1
Bourguiba ala madad (Arabic: بورقيبة على مضض; Bourguiba Reluctantly), part two of Beirut shi mahal (without photos), Beirut: Riyad El-Rayyes, 2008. ISBN 995-3-21334-8
Beirut shi mahal (Arabic: بيروت شي محل; Beirut Some Place), photo travelogue, Alexandria: Amkenah Books, 2006. Bejrut jest gdzieś tam, Warsaw: Dobra Literatura, 2012. ISBN 978-83-935437-0-0
Azhar ash-shams (Arabic: أزهار الشمس; Flowers of the Sun), short stories, Cairo: Dar Sharqiyat, 1999
