What does it mean to be a writer in exile?

[Inquisitive, upbeat music plays in the background]

JORDAN KISNER: I’ve been living in Las Vegas for the first part of this year as part of a fellowship with the Black Mountain Institute, and one of the highlights of this time has been getting to know, as a colleague and a neighbor, the writer, Ahmed Naji.

AHMED NAJI: I’ve been thinking about this podcast and about the interview for the last weeks, because what I noticed is that usually you ask a writer about a big event or a big thing that played a turning point in their life. I kept thinking, “what was the turning point in my life?” and I found there [are] a lot of turning points.

KISNER: Ahmed is a multi-hyphenate sort of artist. He’s been a journalist. He’s been a marketer. He’s worked in film, and he became internationally known as a writer of novels when a novel that he wrote, called Using Life, which is an experimental dystopian novel about Cairo, got him arrested on charges of quote, “violating public modesty in Egypt,” where he is from.

NAJI: The reality is I lived in Egypt most of my life. The last 10 or 12 years was full of turning points starting from the revolution, married and divorced twice, changing jobs, changing places, cities, going to jail. And it was like the whole 10 years was so intense and full of turning points. And, finally, the real turning point in my life is when I moved to Vegas two years ago. My life was full of change that I became adapted for this change. I adapted for this turning over and over.

KISNER: In prison, he received an outpouring of support from the international literary community. And once he was released, he came to the United States through a freedom to write fellowship through Penn America. After arriving in the United States, he and his wife, Yasmin, came to Las Vegas where they’ve been living since 2019, and where I met them.

NAJI: Before entering the prison, basically, in Cairo, in Egypt, you live day by day.

I wasn’t seeing myself as a writer, as a full dedicated writer, true literature writer. I thought of myself sometimes as a journalist, documentary filmmaker. I worked in the movie industry and production house, but, all the time, I was writing. I was writing secretly more to entertain myself. And it happened that, when I finish what I am writing, I will share it with close friends.

And they were the ones who thought, “well, this is great. You should publish it.” But, when I ended up at the prison because of my novel, now you are in the prison and you start to rethink your life and your choice, and you doubt what you are doing.

You start to ask yourself, “is it worth it?” I mean, “writing, is it worth it to be here in the prison for a year or more?” It took me a long journey inside prison to come to this conclusion: “well, it looks like I’m a writer and I have to deal with writing in a serious way.”

I went out of the prison and, two years after I fled Egypt, I arrived here. And again, I’m facing the same questions: “is it worth it? Do I continue as a writer? What does it mean to be a writer here in the United States and what does it mean to be a writer in exile?”

So, I’m facing all these questions.

KISNER: There’s a story you relate in the essay for the Believer about the rhinoceros as a person you knew in prison who was sort of instrumental, and I’m wondering if that was your encounter with him was an important part of that thinking, or if the moment of saying, “what is writing? Is it worth it? Should I really engage with it?” came elsewhere in prison?

NAJI: Yeah, so, for me, in the prison, I was in a prison because of my writing. I always thought I would end up in a prison at [some] time of my life.

In Egypt, you can’t predict, but, for sure, you will pass by the prison, but I didn’t [think] ever that I will end up in prison because of my literature writing. I thought it would be because of my political activism, for my journalist work, but suddenly, I was there for my novel.

Before that, I have been looking to myself, to my literature writing, to my fiction writing as: “I’m writing and I’m doing this work that for sure will not win any literature prize.” Okay? “For sure it will not be published by big publishing houses.” So, I always deal with it as, [a] kind of revolutionary artist practice. I know I experiment a lot. I’m writing a hard book that’s not easy to read. I don’t want a book to be easy to read. [I want] it to be evocative and to push people, to ask a question and rethink their life and their choices, and I know by doing this, I can’t depend on this as a source of income. So that’s why I had to do other stuff.

So that’s why I had to give more time of my life to other work that I really didn’t enjoy that much. I really didn’t think that it [had] any useful impact. I worked for a long time and I made a lot of money working at advertising and marketing, and, I think, it’s just bullshit jobs.

I was also, when I entered the prison, I was 30, going to be 30, 31. And, you know, like all those people saying 30 is a turning point in their life, “oh, I’m 30 now. So, I only have what another 30 years in life or 35 years in life? So, what am I going to do in those 30 years?” So, I was thinking and facing all those questions in prison.

KISNER: How did your relationship with writing change when you moved from Egypt to the United States and, by your own description, out of a period of your life that was very chaotic and full of change and into a period that was less so?

NAJI: As I was saying, life in Egypt is happening so fast, and it’s hard to predict anything. You always feel that you are running and, then, you come here and you feel that the rhythm is slow, a little bit, but the anxiety is more.

KISNER: Mm.

NAJI: The resistance or anxiety, you feel it around you.

Like, I always say how Egypt is a poor country, and people there are poor, but the problem here is that it’s not about that; there is poor here, but it’s about everyone is in debt.

Everyone is on credit cards and paying their education loans, their health insurance loans, and there is no social net. If you lost your job, you will lose everyone. This kind of anxiety is new for me. I’m trying to adapt.

So, now, as a writer, you are faced with questions. First, question about the language: “Should I continue writing in Arabic or should I focus on developing my English?”, and “what does it mean to continue writing in Arabic in a country that most people are speaking English or Spanish?”

And, second, you have questions about understanding your position in this new society and adapting to it.

KISNER: In this period of disorientation, as you described, and of adjustment, what are your hopes for who you are and will be as a writer and for what your writing might do?

NAJI: Now?

KISNER: Mhm.

NAJI: Literally, I don’t know.

KISNER: [Laughs]

NAJI: I don’t have an answer for this question. If you’re asking me this question in two years, I will be sure. I would give you three pages of answers. But now, my hope is first to understand my new position. I hope also to gain more confidence in my English.

I think I want to move [toward] writing in English, but I still have a long journey to do this.

I hope to find the key, to open up the English language for me. I hope I will be able, one day, to dream in English. I think if I started to dream in English, I’ll be able to write in it.

[Hopeful, acoustic music plays until fade out]