Ahmed Naji

Las Vegas Diaries — The Dial “These days I have no passport, no documents. And even if I manage to get one, I cannot return to Egypt.”

A secret is not what you want to conceal but something you want to reveal, but cannot. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Yet all these is a glossy redecoration of an authoritarian system preparing for its next stage. Real reform begins when people choose their rulers, shape their system of governance, and control their own resources. None of that is being discussed.

What is truly sad in all of this is the American media consistently cheering in the last years of the “new Saudi Arabia”: the concerts, the comedy shows, the lifted driving ban for women. They mistake branding to reform, and even some of them engage shamelessly in the washing and branding effort.

The next few years in Saudi Arabia will be tense , maybe brutal. Consolidating a new dynasty means cutting off old branches, neutralizing rivals, and rewriting the unwritten rules that have governed the kingdom for generations

On the recent American-Saudia F 1 Five years ago, when the UAE signed the Abraham Accords with Israel, it did so with an expectation that advanced military hardware would follow, especially the  F-35 fighter jets. Money was …

This is not a small shift. The House of Saud is 15,000 royal family members, of whom about 2,000 hold real political and financial power. MBS cannot manage or neutralize this entire network without external support. And This is why he needs Washington. ahmednaji.net/2025/11/21/o...

For nearly a century, the Saudi system of succession worked according to a delicate internal architecture. Founded by King Abdulaziz (1876 – 1953), the throne passed horizontally between his sons.
Mohammed bin Salman blew that system up.
He wants vertical succession: father → son.

Five years after the UAE signed the Abraham Accords (and paid handsomely), it still hasn’t received the F-35 jets it was promised.
Now Saudi Arabia shows up… and suddenly the road clears.
The jets aren’t the prize .. they’re the souvenir.
What MBS really wants is U.S. blessing for the throne.

On the recent American-Saudia F 1 Five years ago, when the UAE signed the Abraham Accords with Israel, it did so with an expectation that advanced military hardware would follow, especially the  F-35 fighter jets. Money was …

On the recent American-Saudia F ahmednaji.net/2025/11/21/o...

Las Vegas Diaries — The Dial “These days I have no passport, no documents. And even if I manage to get one, I cannot return to Egypt.”

In 2018, two months before his 33rd birthday, Egyptian writer @ahmednaji.bsky.social arrived in the U.S. on a one-way ticket in a journey of exile and self-reinvention. These are excerpts from his journals from that time: www.thedial.world/articles/new...

Make rhizomes my friend, not roots, be water as Bruce Lee once said, map living connections instead of tracing fixed origins.

Egypt +100: Reimagining #Egypt a century after the revolution – Ahmed Naji
https://ahmednaji.net/2024/09/08/egypt-100-reimagining-egypt-a-century-after-the-revolution/

#scifi

Covers of books by Susan Ito, Matthew Zapruder, safiya Sinclair, David Masumoto, and Ahmed Naji.

NBCC Awards finalist ceremony poster for March 21.

Quote about autobiography finalists: “Each book … changed the way we viewed in the world in some fundamental way.”

It was an honor to serve as Chair of the NBCC autobiography award committee this year. Congratulations to the five finalists! Each book is unforgettable. abcnews.go.com/Entertainmen...

Two recent texts that are essential in communicating the various & urgent meanings of creative writing:

1) ‘Texts That Survived the Ashes’: By Ahmed Naji (today on ArabLit)

&

2) ‘Writing in Gaza’: by Yousef el-Qedra

We have no power except bushing and moving the lines in a multipoltical environment, while the whole political narrative is collapsing in a body with no organs

The stuff that passes for literture these days...

Infectious diseases killed Victorian children at alarming rates — their novels highlight the fragility of public health today Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Popular authors like Charles Dickens documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.

Depictions of children dying were rife in 19th century literture, mirroring high child mortality levels in real life. “People who want to dismantle a century of resolute public health measures, like vaccination, invite those horrors to return.” [theconversation.com]

And American people and American economy receive billions of dollars every day from Saudi money. No other countery in the world is pouring money into american econmt like the saudia, thier is whole states like Arizone can't exist without this money

what about American Journalist Shreen Abu Akile who was killed by the IDF, what about more than 100 journalists that Israel killed and targeted last year, why we never see anyone ask Bibi Nughty about all of that

And as for god; God is lobster, or a double pincer, a double bind

who does the earth think it is

“Those Folks Never Had Their Lights Turned Off.” On the Literary Importance of Highlighting the Haves and the Have-Nots Since reading Naomi Kanakia’s essay, “Contemporary Literary Novels Are Haunted by the Absence of Money,” I’ve been recalling how often, nearly fifty years ago, Ray Carver and I complained about the…

Thinking back, I realize our complaint wasn’t so much about money per se as about financially privileged vs. less privileged characters. lithub.com/those-folks-...

“Those Folks Never Had Their Lights Turned Off.” On the Literary Importance of Highlighting the Haves and the Have-Nots Since reading Naomi Kanakia’s essay, “Contemporary Literary Novels Are Haunted by the Absence of Money,” I’ve been recalling how often, nearly fifty years ago, Ray Carver and I complained about the…

I’ve been recalling how often, nearly fifty years ago, Ray Carver and I complained about the same issue. At one point in our lives, we lived next to one another in dumpy motel cabins near Iowa City that rented for $10 a night. lithub.com/those-folks-...

Who did this? I hope not AI

Engaged in the time-honored tradition of writing the slideshow for the presentation while waiting for the flight to the presentation

Eloom

يومن مناسب للاستماع للشهيد الحى رمضان البرنس:
open.spotify.com/track/2gsP9L...

Perfect allegory of the UAE feat USA relationship.

I am still amazed every time I see videos of people filming themselves while crying... This is the highest level of narcissism that any living creature can perform...
They should sell such videos on OF or something

Naguib Mahfouz at the age of 95 — this was the last picture taken just weeks before he was admitted to the hospital, where he later passed away

قاتل متسلسل على الطريق منذ التسعينيات اختارت الدولة تقليص الإنفاق على الوسائل الأنظف والأكثر أمنًا لصالح توكيلات استيراد السيارات من التريلا إلى التوكتوك، ولو أنفقنا عشره لحققنا الأمان على الطرق البرية.

في كارثة طريق القاهرة السويس الأخيرة، احتلت التريلا دور البطولة المطلقة، في خطوة تعيد ترسيخ سائقي التريلات بسهولة ضمن فئة "أعداء الشعب"، ه! manassa.news/stories/28090

جرّة الحقيقة أو الكتابة تحت شبح الغباء الصناعيّ ما نطلق عليه اليوم تسمية «كتاب» هو حصيلة آلاف السنين من التطور التكنولوجي؛ منتج نجح بعضه في النجاة من الحروب، والبراكين، وحوادث غرق السفن، وحرائق المكتبات. لكننا اليوم نرى كهنة التكنولوجيا يتقدّمون با...

تتحدث مع نموذج الذكاء الصناعي الموجود على موبايلك، تهلوس له بأيّ أفكار، فيصيغها لك بأسلوب أدونيس، تقرأه فتعجب بعبقريتك، وتذهب للنوم وأنت تحلم بنوبل. megaphone.news/long-read/%D...