This paper investigates formal, linguistic, and thematic innovation in post-2011 Egyptian literature with a focus on the novel B?wl? (Paulo, Dar al-Tanw?r, 2016) by the Egyptian author Youssef Rakha (b. 1973). In particular, it focuses on Rakha’s use of mixed Arabic as a stylistic device and how it connects to his depiction of the main character, Paulo, as writer/intellectual in ways that subvert established conventions in modern Egyptian literature and the literary field. The novel purports to be written in the form of a blog titled Al-asad ?al? al-?aqq (The Lion for Real) and published online on 14 August 2013, the date of the Raba?a massacre when Egyptian security forces killed thousands of supporters of the recently ousted president, Muhammad Mursi. The blog’s author, as well as the novel’s narrator and main character, is ?Amir, aka Paulo, a poet, director of a cultural agency and photographer who is well known among Cairo’s intellectual circles. Through the blog, Paulo confesses that he is, in reality, a serial killer and that he was an informant for Egyptian State Security during the 2011 uprisings, and he also reveals crimes he committed before and after the events of the Arab uprisings. This paper first contextualizes Rakha’s literary work by establishing the author as part of a generation of authors who entered the literary field in the 1990s, when Rakha experimented first with private publishing and then with publishing on the Internet. Then, it provides close readings of a selection of passages from the novel B?wl? and examines how mixed Arabic is used in the text, focusing on choices of lexicon, syntax, figures of speech, and tone of narration. Finally, the paper connects Rakha’s use of mixed-style Arabic to his depiction of the main character Paulo, a crazy murderer who hides behind the mask of a distinguished intellectual. In this way, the paper demonstrates how Rakha’s novel subverts the nahdawi model of the writer/intellectual as “conscience of the nation” and the idea that literature should conform to certain linguistic norms, norms that have governed the Egyptian literary field until recent years.