Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Yassmin Abdel-Magied is a Sudanese Australian writer and former mechanical engineer. The author of four books, including essay collection Talking About a Revolution (2022) and award-winning teen novel, Listen, Layla (2021), Yassmin also writes for the stage and screen, developing work with production companies across the globe. A trustee of the London Library and regular columnist with The New Arab, Yassmin’s writing can be found in the Guardian, Vogue, TLS, and more.

Yassmin Abdel-Magied reviews 'Elite Capture: How the powerful took over identity politics (and everything else)' by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

November 2022, no. 448 • 21 October 2022

The list of texts exploring ‘identity politics’ is as long as it is politically promiscuous. From the case against (Identity: The demand for dignity and the politics of resentment, 2018), by Francis Fukuyama) to the case for (literally: The Case for Identity Politics, 2020, by Christopher T. Stout), whether conservative or liberal, if there is a take on identity politics a book has been writte ... (read more)

Yassmin Abdel-Magied reviews 'A Brief History of Equality' by Thomas Piketty, translated by Steven Rendall

July 2022, no. 444 • 25 June 2022

Capital in the Twenty-First Century (2013), by French economist Thomas Piketty, is wholly unlike Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018) bar one telling, if esoteric, similarity. For a period of time during the 2010s, being seen with the book mattered more than having read it. Ed Miliband, former leader of the British Labour Party, boasted that he had not progressed beyond the first chapter. WIRED r ... (read more)