Like many other Egyptian writers, such as Naguib Mahfouz and Yusuf Idris, he spent most of his life as a civil servant, supplementing his literary income; he eventually rose to become adviser to the National Library of Egypt.

His ancestors had emigrated from Turkey to Greece, and Ibrahim Haqqi (d. 1890), Yahya's grandfather, moved to Egypt in the early nineteenth century.

In his literary career, he published four collections of short stories, one novel, ("Good Morning", translated from Arabic by Miriam Cooke), a novella (Umm Hashem's Lamp, twice translated from Arabic, by M.M.Badawi and Denys Johnson-Davies), and many articles some of which involved literary criticism of writers works, and other short stories besides.

He was editor of the literary magazine Al-Majalla from 1961 to 1971; this was a dangerous position, as the publication had been banned in Egypt by order of the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser.

His short stories convey attempts to express a certain philosophy on life, a certain stand or viewpoint and advocate human will, which he considered the fountain-spring of all virtues.

He believed that language is not merely a tool of expression or of conveying ideas but rather, an integral part of the writing process in all literary norms.

Haqqi also translated world famous literary works such as "The Chess Player" aka The Royal Game by Stefan Zweig, Baltagul (The Hatchet) by Mihail Sadoveanu, and "The Prodigal Father" by Edith Saunders, he also participated in translating the famous Russian Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

"Gihad Fil Fann" (Effort for the Advancement of Art) جهاد فى الفن, Mustafa Abdalla, Publisher: Egyptian High Council for Culture.

His book "Khaleeha Ala Allah" (Depend on God) is the most truthful autobiography and the most expressive of the development in the different stages of the author's life.