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Using Life
Cover of Using Life
Using Life
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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.

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.

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Table of Contents-
  • Translator's Note
  • Chapter One
  • Where Is the Graveyard of Music?
  • The Quartets of Ibn Arus
  • Chapter Two
  • Portrait of an Old Man in 6th of October
  • Chapter Three
  • A Letter from Reem
  • A Portrait of Mona May at Twenty
  • A Flower in Full Bloom
  • Shafi qa of Alexandria
  • A Cocksucker's Reprimand to His Fellow Cocksuckers
  • Chapter Four
  • The Road of Passion
  • The Animals of Cairo
  • The Nile Meets Paprika
  • Chapter Five
  • Night
  • Revenge Has No Place in Modern Life (1)
  • Chapter Six
  • Revenge Has No Place in Modern Life (2)
  • Hefny Ahmed Hassan
  • Concerning the Influence of the Past on the Future
  • Chapter Seven
  • The Third Flower . . . Where Do I Put the Third Flower, Reem?
  • Muhammad Taha
  • Meeting the Doctor
  • The Graveyard of Music
  • Mind Control and Masturbation
  • One of These Days I Shan't Awake
  • Chapter Eight
  • Chapter Nine
  • The Tree
  • Chapter Ten
  • Author's Acknowledgments
Reviews-
  • Kirkus

    Starred review from October 1, 2017
    Alan Moore meets Nahgib Mafouz in this exuberant, subversive novel by Egyptian writer Naji--who was jailed for his troubles.Bassam Bahgat is, he says, "a professional kiss-ass," adding, "What else could you expect from an economics and political science major?" He's not the only one: though narrating from the vantage point of an old man living in a time of worldly cataclysm, he recounts a whole generation forced to bow down in order to accommodate those in power. He's landed a gig far from what he really knows how to do, and now he's making a documentary film about a secret Cairo, one whose buildings themselves are instances of control and social engineering, one in which the entire city becomes a living creature, and not necessarily a friendly one at that. "If you're just a little mouse of a man spinning inside that Great Wheel, you never get to see the big picture," he reflects. "Whether you work or not, the Wheel of Production keeps on spinning, and the current carries you along." Bassam's co-conspirators are a mixed bunch of intellectuals and artists who labor under no particular illusions of freedom: "There's nothing more difficult than making decisions in Cairo," he says, "since it's Cairo that usually makes decisions for you." For his unadorned view of modern life in the city, which seems strikingly like life in any other city, Naji was tried and imprisoned on the Socratic charge of "harming public morals," and to be sure there are plenty of moments involving various fluids and physical contortions. Mostly, though, the rebellion that bursts forth from this book, parts of which are told in graphic form, lies in its subtle pokes at pious Islam, its marveling at the hidden powers of generations of suppressed Egyptian women, and its sometimes-cynical view of an ancient nation trying to remake itself.A fly-on-the-wall view of an Egypt few outsiders know and one that, in its insistence on unveiled expression, offers hope for a more democratic future.

    COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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Ahmed Naji
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