title: Using Life (Emerging Voices from the Middle East)
author: Ahmed Naji
description: "<cite>Using Life</cite> is a riotous novel about a failing state, a corrupt city, a hypocritical authority, but it is also about tequila shots and getting laid and smoking weed with your infuriating girlfriend and debating whether rock music died in the Seventies and if Quentin Tarantino is a genius or a fraud. Its a young mans book. A young man whose youth is colliding with a dark moment in history." (Zadie Smith, <i>The New York Review of Books</i>)<br /><br />"The name Ahmed Naji has become a rallying cry for writers around the world to stand with free-thinking Egyptians who are unwilling to surrender their rights without a fight." (Suzanne Nossel, executive director of PEN America)
zlib_text: 
  
  
  ![cover](../img/1_1.png)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  EMERGING VOICES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
  
  
  SERIES EDITOR
  
  
  _Tarek El-Ariss_
  
  
  Other titles in the series include
  
  
  _I Want to Get Married!_ , _A Bit of Air_ , and _Limbo Beirut_.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  USING LIFE
  
  
  A NOVEL
  
  
  Ahmed Naji
  
  
  ILLUSTRATED BY
  
  
  Ayman Al Zorkany
  
  
  TRANSLATED BY
  
  
  Benjamin Koerber
  
  
  CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES
  
  
  THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This English translation copyright © 2017 by the Center for Middle Eastern
  Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.
  
  
  All rights reserved
  
  
  Printed in the United States of America
  
  
  Cover image: Cover illustration © Ayman Al Zorkany. Courtesy of the artist.
  
  
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953586
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-4773-1480-7
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-4773-1481-4 (library e-book)
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-4773-1482-1 (nonlibrary e-book)
  
  
  Originally published in Arabic as _Istikhdam al-haya_ , in 2014
  
  
  The Center gratefully acknowledges financial support for the publication of
  _Using Life_ fro