The Egyptian novelist convicted of ‘violating public modesty’ has had his sentence suspended, pending another hearing next month

Egyptian author Ahmed Naji is to be released from prison, after Egypt’s highest appeals court suspended his two-year sentence for “violating public modesty” with his novel The Use of Life.

Naji was charged in 2015 after an excerpt of the book was published in the state-owned magazine Akhbar al-Adab. The passage contained references to sex and drug use, and a complainant alleged that reading the passage gave them “heart palpitations, sickness, and a drop in blood pressure”.

Naji was initially acquitted, but in February was sentenced to two years in prison and fined almost £1,000 in a higher court after the prosecutor appealed. The magazine editor was fined the equivalent of £430 for running the extract.

The writer’s sentence was temporarily suspended by the court of cassation, the highest appeals court in Egypt, on Sunday night. While it was predicted that Naji would be released on Monday, PEN International told the Guardian there had been a delay, due to a complication over paperwork. His lawyer Mahmoud Osman tweeted that he was hoping Naji would be out some time on Tuesday.

M. Lynx Qualey (@arablit) Naji's lawyer Mahmoud Osman - the paperwork is through, Naji should be out tomorrow. #FreeNaji #Enough https://t.co/roxvCV12iP

“This is overdue but excellent news,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of freedom of speech group PEN America. “The spectacle of Ahmed Naji being jailed for a chapter of a novel was among the most egregious affronts to creative freedom in Egypt.”

Naji faces another hearing on 1 January, when the court will either decide to order another trial or send him back to prison.

This is the third attempt to overturn Naji’s sentence. In the nine months he has spent in prison, Naji’s case has become a cause célèbre, with 120 writers and authors, including Woody Allen, Patti Smith and Dave Eggers, signing a PEN America open letter calling for his release.

While Naji was prosecuted under a statute in the Egyptian penal code that criminalises art or printed works judged to be “against public morals”, many are sceptical that his imprisonment was for his writing. Naji was a vocal critic of the Egyptian government and at the time of his imprisonment more than 600 Egyptian authors signed a statement supporting Naji while voicing their alarm at the crackdown on freedom of expression. In May, on the day a global reading of his work was held in cities around the world, Egyptian writer Ahdaf Soueif wrote in the Guardian that “Naji’s crime is not so much what he has written; it is more that he is alive”.