Author: Ahmed Naji -أحمد ناجى
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How to Live in Someone Else’s Body and full in love with the one who stole your body, on McElroy brilliant novel
I have an obsession with body-swap and body transformation stories. I always blame it on the Quran, a book that is full of stories of transformation, a book that was enforced into every detail of my childhood. I have my long list of metamorphosis stories and novels, but I also…
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When the State Represses Cultural Life
Punlished recently: When Egypt Repressed and Censored Arts and Culture | Essay | Zócalo Public Square A few months after the January 25 revolution of 2011, a collective of Egyptian artists organized a three-day workshop focused on art in times of historical change. The two-year period between the revolution and the 2013…
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Collapse Without Liberation: The Structural Reordering of the Middle East
The Iranian regime has collapsed. The Iranian foreign minister has just told Al Jazeera English that the government no longer has real control over the Revolutionary Guard. He said: what happened in Oman was not our choice. We had already asked our armed forces to be cautious about the targets…
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Las Vegas Diaries
In Islamic mythology, everyone in Paradise is 33 years old, considered the perfect age and the peak of physical and mental maturity. Two months before his 33rd birthday, a writer from Egypt who had spent a year in prison for writing a novel arrived in the United States on a…
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On the recent American-Saudia F
1 Five years ago, when the UAE signed the Abraham Accords with Israel, it did so with an expectation that advanced military hardware would follow, especially the F-35 fighter jets. Money was spent, political capital was invested, and yet until now, the UAE has received none of what it was…
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جرّة الحقيقة أو الكتابة تحت شبح الغباء الصناعيّ
ما نطلق عليه اليوم تسمية «كتاب» هو حصيلة آلاف السنين من التطور التكنولوجي؛ منتج نجح بعضه في النجاة من الحروب، والبراكين، وحوادث غرق السفن، وحرائق المكتبات. لكننا اليوم نرى كهنة التكنولوجيا يتقدّمون بالشاشة والمطرقة معًا. فإذا كان الذكاء الصناعي ونماذجه اللغوية قد غيّرت شكل الإنترنت كما عرفناه، فلماذا ما زلنا…
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إبراهيم والفأس الحديدي
بعد فترةٍ من استيلاءِ قوّات الفصائلِ المتحالفة على دمشق، وإعلانِ أحمد الشرع نفسَه فاتحًا ورئيسًا، صرّح بأنّه لا يريد إحياء صراعات مرَّ عليها أكثر من ألف وأربعمائة عام، في إشارة إلى سلسلة الحروب التي دارتْ في المنطقة آنذاك، وخلقت الانقسام الشيعيَّ– السنّيَّ. بعدها بشهور حين تولى دونالد ترامب مسؤولية إدارة…
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من التمر إلى النفط.. مشروع الاستعباد العربي
Also available in English في أبريل/نيسان 1931، كتب الأخوان عبد العزيز وعبد الرحمن بن عبد اللطيف المناع إلى ناصر بن محمد المنيع، ليخبراه أنهما باعا في الدوحة خمسَ نساء سودانيات جُلِبن من الدمّام في السعودية، إلى جمعة الصومالي، بمبلغ 1000 روبية و135 دولارًا. كان ناصر، المقيم في البحرين، أوكل للأخوين…
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Brutally Honest Exploration of Taboo Subjects in Empty Cage
This review was published first: Brutally Honest Exploration of Taboo Subjects in Empty Cages – The Markaz Review Empty Cages, a novel by Fatma QandilAUC Press 2025ISBN 9781649033208 Ahmed Naji A mother and her daughter sit together in their garden in 1960s Cairo. The daughter begins school the following morning, her…
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First school day in the great America
It’s above 100 degrees in Las Vegas. In such hell weather, you usually see homeless people hunting for corners or any scrap of shade. Sometimes they stretch a piece of cloth or cardboard into a roof, a fragile shield against the sun, while the pavement grills them as they sleep…