{"title":"Ahmed Naji","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"rotten-evidence-book-ahmed-naji-9781952119835","title":"Rotten Evidence","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e In February 2016, \u003cb\u003eAhmed Naji\u003c\/b\u003e was sentenced to two years in prison for \"violating public modesty,\" after an excerpt of his novel \u003ci\u003eUsing Life\u003c\/i\u003e reportedly caused a reader to experience heart palpitations. Naji ultimately served ten months of that sentence, in a group cell block in Cairo's Tora Prison.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eRotten Evidence\u003c\/i\u003e is a chronicle of those months. Through Naji's writing, the world of Egyptian prison comes into vivid focus, with its cigarette-based economy, home-made chess sets, and well-groomed fixers. Naji's storytelling is lively and uncompromising, filled with rare insights into both the mundane and grand questions he confronts.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e How does one secure a steady supply of fresh vegetables without refrigeration? How does one write and revise a novel in a single notebook? Fight boredom? Build a clothes hanger? Negotiate with the chief of intelligence? And, most crucially, how does one make sense of a senseless oppression: finding oneself in prison for the act of writing fiction. Genuine and defiant, this book stands as a testament to the power of the creative mind, in the face of authoritarian censorship.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49753120211217,"sku":"NGR9781952119835","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49763431743761,"sku":"CIN1952119839G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50233566036241,"sku":"CIN1952119839VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51399695925521,"sku":"NIN9781952119835","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1952119839.jpg?v=1773316411"},{"product_id":"egypt-100-book-ahmed-naji-9781912697700","title":"Egypt + 100","description":"Egypt + 100 poses a question to twelve contemporary Egyptian authors: what might your country look like in the year 2111 - exactly a century after the failed Tahrir Square Revolution? Might Egypt still be in the grip of ' friendly authoritarianism', clinging to power with all the weapons of futurism at its disposal: protest-avoidant architecture, excessive surveillance, the slow replacement of the outside world with the virtual one. Or might other historical forces come into play, pairing pragmatism with tolerance, and realising some of the lost aspirations of the long-cancelled ' Arab Spring' . Covering a range of styles - from SF noir, to supernatural horror, to political farce - these stories use the blank canvas of the future to process recent traumas that Egypt has yet to come to terms with. Along the way, we encounter gladiatorial entertainments, anti-procreation resistance movements, the decline of Cairo into a lawless wasteland, far from the gated security of the New Capital, and the simultaneous flooding of lower Egypt with the drying up of the Nile. Each story offers an object lesson in the strange logic of authoritarianism, and how, as the editor puts it, politicians' fant","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50279472431377,"sku":"GOR013910637","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51343354495249,"sku":"GOR014231171","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52111344533777,"sku":"NGR9781912697700","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/191269770X.jpg?v=1751218710"},{"product_id":"using-life-book-ahmed-naji-9781477314807","title":"Using Life","description":"Upon its initial release in Arabic in the fall of 2014, Using Life received acclaim in Egypt and the wider Arab world. But in 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison after a reader complained that an excerpt published in a literary journal harmed public morality. His imprisonment marks the first time in modern Egypt that an author has been jailed for a work of literature. Writers and literary organizations around the world rallied to support Naji, and he was released in December 2016. His original conviction was overturned in May 2017 but, at the time of printing, he is awaiting retrial and banned from leaving Egypt. Set in modern-day Cairo, Using Life follows a young filmmaker, Bassam Bahgat, after a secret society hires him to create a series of documentary films about the urban planning and architecture of Cairo. The plot in which Bassam finds himself ensnared unfolds in the novel's unique mix of text and black-and-white illustrations. The Society of Urbanists, Bassam discovers, is responsible for centuries of world-wide conspiracies that have shaped political regimes, geographical boundaries, reigning ideologies, and religions. It is responsible for today's Cairo, and for everywhere else, too. Yet its methods are subtle and indirect: it operates primarily through manipulating urban architecture, rather than brute force. As Bassam immerses himself in the Society and its shadowy figures, he finds Cairo on the brink of a planned apocalypse, designed to wipe out the whole city and rebuild anew.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51693706674449,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51693707985169,"sku":"CIN1477314806G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":52715468587281,"sku":"NGR9781477314807","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1477314806.jpg?v=1750892684"},{"product_id":"rotten-evidence-book-ahmed-naji-9781917453837","title":"Rotten Evidence","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53079776526609,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53079776624913,"sku":"NGR9781917453837","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9781917453837.jpg?v=1769853581"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-ahmed-naji.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}