Internationally acclaimed Egyptian author Ahmed Naji won the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award after his imprisonment on charges of "violating public morals" with this dystopian novel of life in modern Cairo.

• 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
  
  

Ahmed Naji is the author of numerous works of creative nonfiction, including a history of the Arabic blogosphere entitled al-Mudawwinat: Min al-Bust ila al-Twit(Blogs: From Post to Tweet). He is also an editor of and contributor to Akhbar al-Adab, Egypt's foremost literary magazine. His first novel, Rogers, has been translated into Italian. After his imprisonment, he was granted the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award in recognition of his long struggle in support of freedom of expression.

Ayman Al Zorkany is an illustrator and costume designer. In 2009, he left a career in advertising to devote himself to his own work, which has been exhibited at the Egyptian Opera House and the 2012 International Comics Salon in Erlangen, Germany, and featured in several short films and television commercials. The images he designed for Using Life have appeared in special exhibits in Cairo and Alexandria, as well as the 2016 Festival of Mediterranean Literature in Lucera, Italy.

Benjamin Koerber is an assistant professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers University.