Prison Narratives in the Arab World is a rare, and profoundly powerful, account of the human experience of incarceration inside Arab prisons. Weaving a Foucauldian analysis alongside works by prominent novelists from Egypt and Syria, Obeid masterfully argues that prison writing is not only a response to the brutality of authoritarian regimes and the intimate on-the-ground systems of subjugation they engender, but productive of new subjectivities and modes of resistance. This timely book offers a wealth of insight into how men and women writers have endured injustice, and persevered, under extreme forms of physical and psychological violence in Arab prisons. This book is an important, and timely, testament to the overwhelming resiliency and creativity of the human spirit in and beyond the region.

Rania Kassab Sweis, Associate Professor, University of Richmond, USA

At the time when the whole world witnessed the horrors of the Assad regime's Saydnaya Prison after its collapse in Syria on December, 8, 2024, Dina Obeid's powerful account of the prisons' atrocities in Syria and Egypt is a timely intervention that renders presence and agency to the haunting testimony of the victims' voices. A unique book that examines the intricacies of authoritarianism and domination in contemporary Arab states written with exceptional wit, verve, and determination to bespeak the power of the witnessing testimony and its ability to resist and defy systematic dehumanization

Hanadi Al-Samman, Associate Professor, University of Virginia, USA