Jailed Egyptian Novelist Ahmed Naji to receive PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award

PEN America on 31 March 2016 announced that it will confer the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award upon imprisoned Egyptian novelist and journalist Ahmed Naji.
•    The award will be presented to Naji at Pen America's annual Literary Gala on 16 May 2016 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
•    PEN America’s 16 May 2016 Literary Gala will also salute Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling with the 2016 PEN/Allen Foundation Literary Service Award for engendering a love of literature among children worldwide.
•    Naji is the author of three books and a journalist at the state-funded Akhbar al-Adab literary magazine.
•    He has been a vocal critic of official corruption under the rule of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
•    In 2015, he was charged with violating public modesty after a private citizen complained that an excerpt from Naji’s novel The Use of Life published in the state-run literary journal Akhbar al-Adab had given the reader heart palpitations due to its sexual content.
•    State prosecutors then brought a case against Naji despite the Egyptian censorship board’s previous approval of the literary text. 
•    When a trial court found him not guilty, prosecutors appealed to a higher court that in February 2016 delivered a guilty verdict and imposed the maximum sentence of two years in prison.