Youssef Rakha is an Egyptian writer and poet. His first two novels, The Book of the Sultan’s Seal and The Crocodiles, appeared in English in early 2015 through Interlink and Seven Stories Press, respectively. Also a cultural journalist, literary translator, and creative writing coach, he is the founding editor of sultansseal.com. He can be found online at therakha.net and on Twitter @Sultans_Seal. Barra and Zaman, an essay in 200 numbered paragraphs on the Egyptian filmmaker Shadi Abdel Salam's 1969 classic The Mummy, is published by Palgrave Macmillan. Rakha's first English novel, The Dissenters, is set for publication by Graywolf Press in 2025.

Bara Digital is a digital publishing imprint of Barakunan with a focus on audio and digital text. 

Episode 1 features Savyasachi Anju Prabir presenting his personal essay, My Room as a Cosmopolis, written between Berlin and Goa during the early lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.

Try out the podcast.

Dayna Ash is an intersectional feminist, cultural activist, writer, and the founder & Executive Director of Haven for Artists, an unapologetic cultural feminist organization working at the intersection of art and activism. She was named one of the BBC's 100 most inspirational Women in 2019, awarded the Woman of Distinction award in 2020, and the Leader in LGBT Health Equity award in 2021. In 2020 She wrote and produced the film, Courage, which was awarded Best Experimental Film in Montreal Independent film festival in 2022 and the Berlin Indie Film Festival in 2021.