Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer born in Cairo, Egypt on 12 June 1972. His work explores language and identity in the context of Cairo, and reflects connections with the Arab-Islamic canon and world literature. He has worked in many genres in both Arabic and English, and is known for his essays and poems as well as his novels.
Rakha is best known for his first novel, The Book of the Sultan's Seal: Strange Incidents from History in the City of Mars. First published in 2011 as Kitab at-Tugra: Gharaib at-Tarikh fi Madinat al-Marrikh, the book is studied for its innovative use of Arabic, its postmodern take on the theme of the caliphate, its reimagining of the city of Cairo and its possible significance in the history of Arabic literature. It won the Banipal Seif Ghobash Prize for Paul Starkey’s English translation in 2015, and was published in French in 2016.
For academic interest in The Book of the Sultan's Seal, see Paul Starkey's chapter in Studying Modern Arabic Literature, Benjamin Koerber's paper in the Journal of Arabic Literature, and Anton Shammas's remark on the English publisher's website. For the Banipal Prize, see the Banipal Trust site.For the French translation, by Philippe Vigreux, see Éditions Zoé [fr].
