Youssef rakha with gabrielle Bates
On Tuesday, February 11, 2025, Phinney Books is hosting a rare author event! We're welcoming the Egyptian writer Youssef Rakha, who will be discussing his new novel, The Dissenters, with Seattle poet Gabrielle Bates. Rakha is a novelist, poet, reporter, and photographer who has published more than a half-dozen books in Arabic, including the novel The Crocodiles (which reminded reviewers of Bolano's Savage Detectives, set in Cairo), but The Dissenters, which comes out in February from the wonderful Graywolf Press, is his first written in English. It imagines modern Egyptian history, from the Nasser era through the hope and despair of the Arab Spring, via the ever-changing identities of a single woman during those tumultuous times. With Yuri Herrera’s words, "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," we expect his work will be not just a guide to Egyptian history but to our own tumultuous, despairing era, and we are especially glad that he'll be in conversation with Gabrielle Bates, whose latest collection, Judas Goat, has been a breakout hit among poetry readers here and across the country. It'll be a special night for us, and we hope you can join us..
If you’d like to reserve signed copies of their books, or order them to be shipped anywhere in the U.S. or Canada, you can do so below.