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Seven Stories Press

Works of Radical Imagination

Alaa Abd el-Fattah's "You Have Not Yet Been Defeated" - Sanaa Seif, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, & Atef Said

April30 at Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago, IL

A celebration of Alaa Abd el-Fattah's You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, featuring his sister Sanaa Seif. She will be joined in conversation by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, with Atef Said as moderator.

Presented in partnership with the UIC Arab American Cultural Center, the Middle East and Muslim Societies cluster at UIC, Mamas Activating Movements for Abolition & SolidarityU.S. Palestinian Community Network, the Middle East and North African Studies Program at Northwestern University, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, Black Lives Matter Chicago, and Love and Protect. 

Our celebration will be held outdoors in the greenspace behind the Seminary Co-op, pending inclement weather.
Masks and vaccinations are encouraged. This event is free and open to the public, you can submit advance registration HERE

About the book: Alaa Abd el-Fattah is arguably the most high-profile political prisoner in Egypt, if not the Arab world, rising to international prominence during the revolution of 2011. A fiercely independent thinker who fuses politics and technology in powerful prose, an activist whose ideas represent a global generation which has only known struggle against a failing system, a public intellectual with the rare courage to offer personal, painful honesty, Alaa’s written voice came to symbolize much of what was fresh, inspiring and revolutionary about the uprisings that have defined the last decade. Collected here for the first time in English are a selection of his essays, social media posts and interviews from 2011 until the present. He has spent the majority of those years in prison, where many of these pieces were written. Together, they present not only a unique account from the frontline of a decade of global upheaval, but a catalogue of ideas about other futures those upheavals could yet reveal. From theories on technology and history to profound reflections on the meaning of prison, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated is a book about the importance of ideas, whatever their cost. 

About the speaker: Sanaa Seif is an Egyptian filmmaker, producer and political activist. She has been imprisoned three times under the Sisi regime for her activism. Most recently from the summer of 2020 until December 2021, when she was abducted by security forces after trying to get a letter in to her brother in prison. Hundreds of cultural figures and dozens of institutions campaigned for her release. She was released in December and will travel to the US to promote her imprisoned brother, Alaa Abd el-Fattah's, newly published book, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated.

About the interlocutor: Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. He has reported from across the Arab world for a number of print and broadcast outlets and is currently an editor and reporter at Mada Masr, Egypt's leading independent media outlet.

About the moderator: Atef Said is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Revolution Squared: Tahrir, Political Possibilities and Counter-Revolution in Egypt (forthcoming from Duke University Press).

Event Location: 

Seminary Co-op Bookstore

5751 S Woodlawn Ave

Chicago, IL 60637

See map: Google Maps

April30, 11.00pm

5751 S Woodlawn Ave
Chicago, IL 60637 United States