On January 12th, the Virginia Center for Literary Arts (VCLA) Founding Director Sean Murphy and our own director, Matthew Davis, spoke with Egyptian journalist and novelist Ahmed Naji at their first co-sponsored event.
Ahmed retold the remarkable events that led to his being imprisoned in Egypt for most of 2016 for “violating public modesty,” which he writes of in his novel, Using Life. Besides reading excerpts from his novel and eloquently discussing the ways Naji’s experiences have informed his fiction and journalism, Naji spoke also about life since being released and moving to the United States.
It was a pleasure of speaking with him on a snowy afternoon in Winchester, Virginia. Ahmed spoke eloquently about his work, his time in prison, and his thoughts on being a writer in exile. It may have been our first time partnering with VCLA, but it most certainly will not be the last.
February 04, 2019
