Abdel Razek Okasha, Samir Rafi - The Philosopher of Humanity, Cairo 2011, (CULTNAT, Bibliotheca Alexandrina), p. 68-60, illustrated / in color
His works represent a wide range of artistic schools: expressionism, symbolism and surrealism - so much so that his fame made him a master, juxtaposing Egyptian reality with myth and folklore in a contemporary setting. .
“He would call me every morning and talk for hours, then we would meet in the evening after finishing my work at the Louvre, where I was working at the time. We used to have dinner at my house or in a Pakistani restaurant on rue d'Estrées, where Rafi particularly liked the curry, served with fresh bread. On the day of his death, I was on vacation in Egypt, when I received a phone call from my wife in Paris telling me sadly that Rafi had been found dead in his apartment. Returning to Paris with a broken heart, I remembered the times spent together, remembering that he only slept a few hours; he used to spend the night at my house, leaving at 4 a.m., and only three hours later, he woke me up with a phone call to reconsider most of what he had told me the night before. Rafi had always been confused and disoriented; he used to document everything on pieces of paper, scattered around his little house. He was a closet of secrets that I was never able to unlock, despite the fact that I was one of the few allowed into his third-floor workshop studio. After his death, entering inside, I walked backwards, my heart heavy. I felt like I had never been to this place where the foul smell was overwhelming. We found scraps of paper everywhere; Rafi used to take notes, write about his feelings, moments of happiness or sadness. He wrote about everything that came to hand, sugar cube wrappers, salt boxes, pizza boxes; he didn't throw anything in the trash. The chair he sat on was the only clean thing; the rest of the furniture was covered in dust. It seems that the chair was the last place that came into contact with Rafi's body in the past few days. »
Rafi was born to an Egyptian father and a Lebanese Christian mother. His father, a lawyer, was very strict. He took him to a sheikh to learn the Koran and classical Arabic. His mother, a gentle and tolerant woman who called him Iskandar instead of Samir drove him to church and taught him French. As Okasha explains: “The contradictory and confusing atmosphere left him with a legacy of conflict. He had a predilection for surprise, a versatile and powerful intellect.” Rafi emigrated to France in 1954.