The Book of Safety

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Yasser Abdel Hafez. The Book of Safety

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Yasser Abdel Hafez is a journalist and novelist, and is an editor at the literary magazine Akhbar al-Adab. His first novel On the Occasion of Life was longlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction. He lives in Cairo, Egypt.

Robin Moger is the translator of Otared by Mohammad Rabie and Women of Karantina by Nael Eltoukhy, among other books. His translation for Writing Revolution won the 2013 English PEN Award for outstanding writing in translation. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

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I couldn’t make up my mind which position best suited him. Uncategorizable in a place whose function was to categorize and judge. Which is why I left and he stayed on. His experience enabled him to sidestep the difficult question. Commenting on his behavior, I once told him, “We are obliged to be serious.”

And he replied, with a simplicity that defeated my assertion, “Says who?”

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