What distinguishes the arab porn from its Western counterpart? The motives? The settings, the perspectves? The technologies? The Egyptian author and journalist Youssef Rakha investigates with enthousiasm the banned but widely spread genre of the pop culture. His descriptions of it are completed with analysis. Culture and politics are melting in the pictures of desire. Porn is a mirror of society, the language of its picture are so formally conditioned by the culture and at the same time it manages to influence the society. Has arab porn managed what the arab revolutions haven‘t?
Egypt
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Youssef Rakha is born in 1976 in Cairo and is the author of many books of prosa, poetry and non-fiction. Since 1990 he is working as a journalist writing in English for The Atlantic, Lettre International and The Writer Review.
"In his clever essay, Egyptian author Youssef Rakha searches his country's amateur porn for the key to social conditions." - Bert Rebhandl, Der Standard
"Youssef Rakha's thoughts on revolution and porn take him to the discursive outside of his homeland. [...] Rakha thinks in the West - but in Cairo he feels at home. The sadness of his homelessness gives Arab Porn its urgency and quality." - Robert Defcon, Spex
"Surprising, edgy, worth reading." - Tabea Grzeszyk, Deutschlandfunk Kultur
"'Arab Porn' is about desire as a revolutionary force. About how porn can also be a medium of freedom." - Juliane Liebert, SPIEGEL
