Category: Publications & Press
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ArabLit review: Egypt + 100’: Fictions on the Future of Public Space
Full review here Each anthology of near-future fiction in Comma Press’s “Futures Past” series has had a distinctly different flavor. The stories in Iraq + 100, ed. Hassan Blasim, are set in 2103, a hundred years after the disastrous US-led invasion, and many of them map the catastrophic aftereffects of this war.…
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Lina Mounzer: Rotten Evidence: Ahmed Naji Writes About Writing in PrisonLina Mounzer:
Published: Rotten Evidence: Ahmed Naji Writes About Writing in Prison – The Markaz Review By now, the story has become the standard addendum following any introduction of Ahmed Naji’s name: in 2015, an excerpt from the young Egyptian writer’s second novel, Using Life, was published in a literary supplement in Cairo. A…
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(In WashingtonPost ) Locked up in an Egyptian prison, I found solace in the library
In this excerpt from his memoir, ‘Rotten Evidence,’ Ahmed Naji explores the role that books played in his life Perspective by Ahmed Naji November 2, 2023 at 1:30 p.m. EDT In 2016, Ahmed Naji served 10 months of a two-year prison sentence in Egypt for “violating public decency” in his novel…
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Writing Sex in Arabic Literature: Ahmed Naji Narrates His Own Obscenity Trial
This excerpt was published : Writing Sex in Arabic Literature: Ahmed Naji Narrates His Own Obscenity Trial ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com) Sometime in the early twentieth century, a large subgroup of Arabic words and expressions referring to sex and sexual organs began to disappear from printed books, as if the…
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In Rotten Evidence, the author breaks bonds both literary and political
Read the review also here: Scott Dickensheets (knpr.org) Nevada Public Radio | By Scott Dickensheets In Rotten Evidence, the author breaks bonds both literary and political I can’t think of any literary genre that lies as habitually about its subject, or is as artistically lazy while claiming authenticity, as prison literature.” This…
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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…