Rotten evidence : reading and writing in an Egyptian prison /
In February 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for "violating public modesty," after an excerpt of his novel Using Life reportedly caused a reader to experience heart palpitations. Naji ultimately served ten months of that sentence, in a group cell block in Cairo's...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Language Notes: | Translated from the Arabic. |
| Published: |
San Francisco :
McSweeney's,
[2023].
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| Summary: | In February 2016, Ahmed Naji was sentenced to two years in prison for "violating public modesty," after an excerpt of his novel Using Life 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. Rotten Evidence 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. 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. |
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| Item Description: | First published as Hirz mikamkim by Sefsafa Publishing House, Giza, in 2019; second edition by Khan Aljanub, Berlin, in 2021. Translation of: Hirz mikamkim. |
| Physical Description: | 263 pages ; 21 cm. |
| ISBN: | 1952119839 9781952119835 |