Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer of fiction and nonfiction working in Arabic and English. He is the author of the novels The Book of the Sultan’s Seal (Interlink, 2014) and The Crocodiles (Seven Stories Press, 2015) as well as Paulo, which was on the long list of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2017 and won the 2017 Sawiris Award. The Dissenters (Graywolf, 2025) is his first novel to be written in English. He was among the 39 best Arab writers under 40 selected for the Hay Fest
