Episode 23: Youssef Rakha - “Genre, Freedom, and Political Despair”

In this ep Hilary talks to the writer and editor Youssef Rakha, whose novel The Dissenters is just out this spring from Graywolf. The Dissenters is Youssef’s first novel to be written in English—you may know his previous The Book of the Sultan’s Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars, translated by Paul Starkey (and which Hilary edited back in the day), and The Crocodiles, translated by Robin Moger. Shoutout to those two translators. And/or his long essay on Arab porn and his book-length essay on The Mummy. We talk about the beloved bilingual English/Arabic magazine The Sultan’s Seal—archived here—which Youssef founded and edited, and how literary work might create “less transactional communities.” We dive into the new novel and Youssef’s interest in the epistolary form and narrating nonlinearly as a means to better represent history. We talk about moving between languages, the freedom of writing a novel in English without paying attention to the industry in English, Youssef’s generational beginnings as a writer “in the twilight zone between state control and neoliberalism,” his first trip to the US, and addressing Westerners amid the genocide in Gaza. Among the writers mentioned are Arwa Salih, whose work The Stillborn is available in English, translated by Samah Selim. Finally and not finally, we consider what may be hopeful about despair.

Bonus: Here’s a lovely long essay on Youssef’s work in English by the writer Madeline Beach Carey, published in Full Stop. And a heads up: The Dissenters discusses suicide and so does this episode.