Ahmed Naji joined us for a conversation about being an exiled author, his two-year prison sentence in 2016, his migration to the United States, and much more. He shared with us his relationship with language, identity, and Egypt and how fluid they all are. Ahmed also talked about his writing process, previous and upcoming projects, and his vision of Egypt’s future.
Ahmed Naji is an Egyptian novelist and journalist born in Mansoura in 1985. He is the author of four books, Rogers (2007), Seven Lessons Learned from Ahmed Makky (2009), The Use of Life (2014), and Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in Prison (2020), as well as numerous blogs and other articles. He was also a journalist for Akhbar al-Adab, a state-funded literary magazine, and frequently contributed to other newspapers and websites including Al-Modon and Al-Masry Al-Youm. He has won several prizes including the Dubai Press Club Arab Journalism Award, United Arab Emirates, 2012 for best culture article, and the PEN/Barbey Freedom To Write Award, USA, 2016. He is now a fellow at Black Mountain Institute, living in Las Vegas with his family.
This is the twelfth in a series of interviews with artists, academics, activists, and other migrants of Egypt around the world. Check out previous conversations in the series and stay tuned for our next installment.
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