In January of this year, the tenth anniversary of the 2011 Egyptian revolution passed by unceremoniously. A decade on, 60,000 political prisoners remain in jail, a reminder that Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s current regime is still terrified of its memory. Throughout the decade that has elapsed since the revolution, the prospects for the Left in Egypt have not been favorable. Widespread suppression of opposition has meant that critical voices against the regime have not been able to organize politically.

Within this repressive context, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, author of You Have Not Yet Been Defeated (YHNYBD), has been one of the most persistent and high-profile critics of Egypt’s authoritarian state. In YHNYBD, Alaa Abd el-Fattah attempts to defend the legacy of the revolution against its detractors and to bear witness to his government’s continued use of violence to suppress opposition.

Of the 60,000 political prisoners currently in the custody of the Egyptian state, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, colloquially referred to as Alaa, is undoubtably the most famous. A staunch critic of all of Egypt’s postrevolutionary governments, he has spent the better part of the past decade in jail. Alaa has been imprisoned by the three successive governments of Hosni Mubarak, Mohamed Morsi, and al-Sisi. His confrontations with Egypt’s authoritarian governments have garnered him support across the world, and in Egypt the hashtag #FreeAlaa has been a constant presence on social media since 2006.