Author: Ahmed Naji -أحمد ناجى
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Narrating the Middle East
The pleasure of speaking with Kim Ghattas is always inspiring. The conversations with her are usually full of laughs, jokes, and new information. By connecting the dots, she leads you to further discovery. Don’t miss all that and her new podcast, “People like us.” I was honored to be featured…
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Salman Rushdie and the enduring risk of political art
From a report at VOX: https://www.vox.com/world/2022/8/16/23307317/salman-rushdie-stabbing-free-speech-art-threats-global Funnily enough, Naji had taken up reading Rushdie in prison. He had always wanted to read Rushdie’s novels, he said, but they are big, long books, and he remembers telling his friends that he never had the time. So Naji’s friend sent him Midnight’s Children in…
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Traps and Shadows in Noor Naga’s Egypt Novel
Translated from the Arabic by Rana Asfour We find ourselves in Cairo in a post-2016 world, when a bald American girl arrives in what she feels is her homeland and the origin of her roots. Reading between the lines, we gather that she’s left America, fleeing from a sadness that…
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Arab Fiction Now & The Challenges of Writing in & About the Region
This panel of leading regional and diaspora authors will discuss the inspiration for their most recent novels and the social, cultural and political context informing their work. The panel will also explore the challenges that Arab writers in the region and its diaspora face as they reflect on societies dealing…
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Not my Egypt – Interview with pen/opp
Ahmed Naji is trying to understand the zeitgeist. In the 36 years of his life he has witnessed dictatorship, revolution, counter-revolution, military coup, jail and exile. Ahmed Naji’s story is unique. He is the first author jailed for a work of literary fiction in Egypt’s modern history. What is more,…
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Taming the Immigrant: Musings of a Writer in Exile
I see no impurity or weakness in fear, unlike courage which I have often found to be synonymous with male folly. In fact, if anything, fear keeps you alert, vigilant, in a state of internal meditation even, one that enables you to gradually build up your psychological defenses. I refer…
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Música en Egipto en la última década: entre huir y asestar con las autoridades
Comencé mi carrera en el periodismo hace 17 años. En una serie de incidentes no planeados, terminé cubriendo actividades musicales y la escena de la música contemporánea como mi enfoque principal. [Se prohíbe expresamente la reproducción total o parcial, por cualquier medio, del contenido de esta web sin autorización expresa…
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All attention to the art
I don’t know when this architecture tradition started, but I believe most of us are familiar with it. You enter a giant building, and at the entrance, you come across a glass box displaying the building’s scale model/maquette. You are inside the building, yet you are observing a miniature rendition…