On Saturday 18 February 2023 at 7 p.m. the Teatro Stabile dell’Umbria, Festival delle Colline Torinesi and Fondazione Merz present the staged reading of Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s book Non siete stati ancora sconfitti (You have not yet been defeated), realised as part of the ZACentrale project in Palermo.

The event focuses on the human and political journey of Egyptian writer, computer scientist and blogger Alaa Abd el-Fattah. A key personality of the Arab Spring and a prominent figure in the 2011 Tahrir Square revolution, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has been imprisoned on several occasions, was sentenced in 2021 to five years in prison for allegedly spreading false news online. As a result also of the prison management’s refusal to guarantee the consular rights of the prisoner, who had in the meantime obtained British citizenship, Alaa Abd el-Fattah started a hunger strike on 2 April 2022 that lasted more than seven months to protest against the inhuman conditions of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Egyptian prisons. His case has helped to raise general awareness of the situation, thus arousing a strong feeling of international solidarity.

The book Non siete stati ancora sconfitti (You have not yet been defeated), which brings together the writings of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in a publication released in Italy by hopefulmonster publisher in 2021, comes to life in the spaces of ZACentrale in Palermo thanks to Massimiliano Speziani‘s performance. The staged reading that ensues guides the audience through the vicissitudes that have marked Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s life, from his son’s childhood memories to his journey to Palestine, from the protest movements in the squares to the dramatic events that led to his imprisonment.