Dont read this book to be comforted. Read it to be challenged, terrified, enlightened, moved, and amazed.
Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire Alaa is the bravest, most critical, most engaged citizen of us all. At a time when Egypt has been turned into a large prison, Alaa has managed to cling to his humanity and be the freest Egyptian.
Khaled Fahmy, author of All The Pashas Men Alaa is in prison not because he committed a crime, not because he said too much, but because his very existence poses a threat to the state. Those who are bold, those who do not relent, will always threaten the terrified and ultimately weak state which must, to survive, squash its opponents like flies. But Alaa will not allow himself to be crushed like that, I know.
Jillian C. York, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Alaa is a philosopher of everyday life and life-long struggle; he doesnt merely find meaning in that which we go through, especially in dark political moments, but creates meaning and gives it form in writing. And he does so from a highly entrenched and implicated place in the present. His thoughts know no frontiers; they pierce through local contexts to inspire new modes of thinking about the chaotic substance of politics.
Lina Attalah, editor in chief of Mada Masr The text you are holding is living history.
Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything Fix your own democracy, Abd el-Fattah encourages us, from his cell; Egypts rulers attempt to isolate, fragment and conceal resistance because it needs a global ecosystem to flourish. What can any one person do with a legacy of pain, struggle and courage? There are no easy solutions here, but You Have Not Yet Been Defeated is a heartbreaking, hopeful answer.
Guardian
