-The City of Asylum program at UNLV is providing hope to writers persecuted in their home countries.

And one of them, Egyptian Author Ahmed Naji, is now a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Nevada Week spoke with him about the memoir that earned him that recognition, Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison.

All right, so February of 2016, the Egyptian Government sentences you to two years in prison for violating public morality.

What was it that you did that the government thought violated public morality?

(Ahmed Naji) Well, until now, I don't know, really, to be honest with you.

What happened, the story is what happens in 2014, I published a novel called Using Life and a chapter of this novel was published in a magazine.

The official story is that someone reads this chapter.

And after he read it, he had his blood pressure raised and he kind of had a heart attack.

So he went to the police station and accusing me of harming him.

Now, what happened in Egypt legal system is that anyone has the right to accuse anyone of anything.

But it came to the Tunisian prosecutor to decide is it legal, legit, or not?

So in my case, they accused me of disturbing public morality and obscenity-- -Because someone read a passage from your book, and it gave him heart palpitations.

-Yeah, because prosecutor also reads a chapter and thought, Oh, this is obscenity.

-When you wrote the novel, though, were you aware at that time, This could send me to prison?

-No, not really.

This wasn't, this wasn't, this never came to my mind.

All over like Egypt, legal history, like, yeah, we have cases when writer were sent to the prison.

But mainly it will be for political reason, for blasphemy.

So this was kind of new and surprise.

And even my legal team and my lawyer say didn't expect like it to reach this level.

Like, I remember, well, we went to the court.

And we saw the worst scenario is that they will find me guilty and will fine me.

And I went to the court with some money on my booklet in case they fine me, so I will pay the fine and go.

But what happened was that we were all surprised by the two-years rules.

-Why do you think you got that stiff of a sentence?

-I think because this was in 2016, and Egypt was going into a very dramatic shift.

In Egypt in 2011, we had the revolution that ended up by taking out Hosni Mubarak.

We had kind of two years where we have like, kind of big space for freedom and political participation, and then we have a military group inserted.

And when the general and the military came to regime, they started to set the new rules.

And part of it was attacking freedom of speech.

-You had been a blogger that wrote against the government prior to this, but you wrote under a pseudonym.

Do you think they even knew that you were that person?

-No.

This happened like my blogger phase was like even was 2006 and 2007.

I was, I was a journalist also.

So I was publishing like, weekly.

I had a weekly political column, and articles are published in [indistinct].

And yeah, I expected like one day I would face problems.

I already like, during my career as a journalist for 15 years, I faced several legal challenge.

But I never expected the same will come through like fiction and novels, especially because like I was, what kind of literature I'm writing.

I'm writing science fiction.

My main themes is always about love and friendship.

So I was like, this was like a faraway way to do, they come from.

-Do you remember exactly what was in that excerpt that this man said gave him a heart attack?

-It was a full chapter, but it was all hilarious.

Like I remember when prosecutor was investigating the case, there was a session like my lawyer said, Oh, don't go to the prosecutor.

We will go.

-To defend you instead of in person?

-Yeah.

And in one sessions, prosecutor asked, the lawyer told him, You know, I could also accuse Ahmed of selling drugs.

And it was like, What are you talking about?

Because in this chapter, the narrator is saying that this chapter was written in the first-person narrator.

So it was like, Oh, I went to this, I did this.

So this chapter like the narrator was saying, Well, I rolled the joint, or I did blah, blah, blah.

So for him, for the prosecutor, it was like, Oh, it's Ahmed Naji who's like confirming that he did this.

-Because you wrote in first person.

-Yeah.

My lawyer was like, No, it's not like that.

He was like, Well, this is what's published in newspaper under his name.

So if he was lying, this is another charge.

-Wow!

-So the level, yeah, so the level of discussion in this issue sometimes when go into like a bizarre, bizarre area, that is like trying to follow like a logic.

It's, it's getting complicated and hard.

-How scary was this when you learned of your sentence?

-I started to laugh.

Like, I remember I had, like, a laughing history for a couple of hours when they told me.

-A laughing-- -Yeah.

Because it was shocking, and it was weird.

We weren't expecting it.

But then you adapt.

You adapt and you grow, also in Egypt, familiar with the story of prison and people sending, being sent to the prison because they express what he's saying or what, what they believe.

So you are aware that there is a percentage that you will go to this path.

But there was like shock in the beginning, and then you start to adapt.

- The New York Times wrote an article about your sentence, and it spurred outrage among human rights advocates across the world.

There were prominent artists and writers who signed a letter demanding your release, including Woody Allen.

At what point did you learn about that letter, and what did you think?

-So we were allowed to have a newspaper daily, okay, in our prison.

-In the prison?

-Yeah.

And suddenly one day, no one in the prison received the newspaper.

So the news, we were cut on that day.

And when we tried to ask and say, Guard, where is the newspaper, they didn't answer.

So it took me until the next week when my family visited me.

And then they told me, Oh, PEN America organized this campaign.

And they have this letter that was signed for by many people and many writers, and they gave you this prize.

And then I put the connection.

So the prison banned the newspaper from all the prisoners in my prison, because they didn't want the news to reach out to me.

Because again, the aim of suppression when a regime is banning a book or putting a writer in a prison, the aim of this is to isolate.

They isolate you from the society and to make you doubt what you are doing, doubt what you believe, to break you down, and to send the message to society that we have the upper hand, and we could, if you cross the line, we'll send you to the prison and no one will remember you.

But this kind of solidarity and act is like breaking suppression.

It's breaking suppression.

You reach out to the prisoner.

You send him a message that you are not alone, and there is other people who support you and believe you and what you have done worth something.

-Do you think that letter is why your sentence ended up being suspended?

You ended up spending ten months in prison, not two years.

-I think it's playing a role, of course.

But again, this will, like I received this letter and this campaign that was organized by PEN America, but at the same time, there was also campaigns from Egyptian writers and some Arabic writer.

So it was a collective effort, including also my lawyer, my wife, who was also my lawyer, who like work it on the ground to reach this result.

-And if the prison was, in fact, trying to intimidate you, they did not do a good job, because you get out and you write a book about your time in that prison.

Part of the description of your book is, quote, Through Naji's writing, the world of Egyptian prison comes into vivid focus with its cigarette-based economy, homemade chess sets, and well-groomed fixers.

"Well-groomed fixers," who are they?

What do they do?

-Well-groomed fixers, well, what was this part?

Like we are talking about like grooming hair?

-I don't know, and so this brings up an interesting point, because your book had to be translated to English from Arabic.

-Yeah.

-And there's probably some lost in translation.

I'm thinking of someone within the prison who is negotiating.

-Yeah, well-groomed fixer.

Yeah, I know.

So basically, because the system of prisons in Egypt is different than here.

Now we are becoming American because Egypt is receiving a lot of money from out of the state, and the government is using this to build the new prisons following the American manual.

So now they are changing the system of the prison.

-That's interesting because when you read about American funding to Egypt, it's for the purpose of buying weapons.

-Yeah, but again, they will.

Yeah, but it's-- there is no really accountability or supervision of anything.

But yeah, for this fixer, the system is like usually you will have other prisoners who are working inside the prison.

They are like a connection or a bridge between the prisoner and the administration.

So for example, it's like if you watch it, what's the name of some movies?

Shawshank?

Shawshank?

- Shawshank Redemption?

-Yeah.

So you remember, he was working.

He was doing the taxes for the prison.

Yeah, so you have the same system in Egypt, but it's bigger.

So for example, you know, as an administrator in the prison, you have a lot of paperwork to do.

So they would get just two prisoners and put them in his office, and they will work as an assistant to do the job for him.

So actually, you have a system where the prisoners themself are the ones who's running the prison under the administration.

-There are other questions that are asked within this book.

Some are funny, like, How do you build a clothes hanger?

But others are, How do you make sense of a senseless oppression?

You're put in prison for writing fiction.

Did you ever rationalize it?

Did you ever make sense of it?

-Yeah, of course, I start to question it.

I start to question why I'm doing this and what is the aim and was it worth it?

And you also start to question, well, after you get out of here--because at any prison, you are getting out in the end--what you are going to do.

And I already had a doubt about like, oh, everything.

You have to understand also that I didn't see myself as a writer at that point.

Like, yeah, I already published several books, but I was mainly working on as a journalist, working on the media industry in documentaries and making films.

So I had another career.

I was like on my way to become like an agent for bellydancers.

So my life was going-- -An agent for bellydancers?

-Yeah.

It's a long story, complicated.

So my life was was going into another path.

But suddenly you are in prison for a year, and you start to question everything.

And I remember very well, there is a night that-- so we had this inmate in our cell who is, he was very violent person.

And he was accused of stealing $400 million.

-"Vital" person or "violent" person?

-Two, violent and vital.

-And he was accused of stealing $400 million.

But he will say, Oh, they are just 200 million, and now they send me in prison.

So I'm not going to give them any money back.

And he, because he did all this scheme under his father name, so they first arrested his father and then they arrested him.

So basically, he was in the prison and his father who was like 81 years old also with us in our cell.

-They were together?

-Yeah.

And this guy was brutal.

Like he doesn't care about anything, very selfish.

-Not even his father?

-Yeah.

And then one day I woke up at night, about 2 a.m.

I go to the, to the restroom, and I found him in the middle of the night crying, crying hard.

And I was surprised like, Are you okay?

Why are you crying?

What is the problem?

And he was like, Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Have you read this book called In My Heart a Hebrew Girl, which is a very kind of a very romantic novel.

It's a romance and [indistinct] novel.

Not kind of literature that I love, but it's mainly like kind of literature also that's for teenagers mainly.

And I was like, No, I didn't read it.

And I don't plan to read it.

And he was like, Man, you have to read it.

Like I left the book on my bed because even when I look at the cover, I remember some sentence and I start to cry.

And I was surprised.

I was shocked.

I was like, you have this guy that I once saw him smoking his cigarette while his father is having a heart attack and everyone is rushing to help his father, and he was just smoking a cigarette.

And you have him crying at night in a prison cell because he was reading a book.

So I start to question like, what is this power that is hidden in literature and writing a book, and how come like a word or sentence written on a paper will reach the heart of such kind of person and squeeze it and push him to cry at night?

And this was like a turning point because you start to question, well, maybe that's why you are in the prison.

Maybe because there is, there is a secret, there is a power hidden inside written words that could reach people and flip them side upside, side outside.

-Thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

-Thank you, Amber.

Thank you for having me.