Basma Abdel Aziz (

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

: بسمة عبد العزيز, born 1976 in Cairo,

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

) is an Egyptian writer,

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

, visual artist and human rights activist, nicknamed 'the rebel'. She lives in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

and is a weekly columnist for Egypt's ''

al-Shorouk ''Al-Shorouk'', ''Shorouk News'' or ''Al-Shuruq'' ( "The Sunrise") is a prominent Arabic newspaper published in Egypt and several other Arabic nations. It is a daily independent liberal-oriented newspaper, covering mainly politics, militant af ...

'' newspaper. She writes in Arabic, and her novels ''The Queue'' and ''Here Is A Body'' were published in English. For her literary and nonfiction work, she was awarded the

Sawiris Cultural Award The Sawiris Cultural Award is an Culture of Egypt, Egyptian literary prize, awarded annually by the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development. It was inaugurated in 2005 with prizes in two categories: novels and short stories. Since then, additiona ...

and other distinctions.

Life and career

Born in

, Abdel Aziz holds a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

in medicine and surgery, an M.S. in neuropsychiatry, and a diploma in sociology. She works for the General Secretariat of Mental Health in Egypt's Ministry of Health and the Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture. As a writer, Abdel Aziz gained second place for her short stories in the 2008

, and a 2008 award from the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces. Her sociological examination of police violence in Egypt, ''Temptation of Absolute Power'', won the Ahmed Bahaa-Eddin Award in 2009. Her debut novel ''Al-Tabuur'' (''The Queue'') was first published by Dar al-Tanweer in 2013,New release: 'The Queue' by Basma Abdel-Aziz
''

Ahram Online ''Al-Ahram'' (; ), founded on 5 August 1876, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second-oldest after '' Al-Waqa'i' al-Misriyya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majority owned by the Egyptian governm ...

'', 27 Feb 2013. and Melville House published an English translation by Elisabeth Jaquette in 2016. In 2017, this satirical novel won the

English PEN Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' associa ...

Translation Award. For its

dystopia A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmen ...

n representation of injustice, torture and corruption, it has been compared by the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

to George Orwell's

Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984'') is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically ...

and

The Trial ''The Trial'' () is a novel written by Franz Kafka in 1914 and 1915 and published posthumously on 26 April 1925. One of his best-known works, it tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, wi ...

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of Litera ...

. The novel has also been published in Turkish, Portuguese, Italian and German translations. In 2016, she was called one of ''

Foreign Policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

'' 's Leading Global Thinkers. In 2018, she was named by The

Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute (GDI) is an independent think-tank and the oldest organisation of its kind in Switzerland. It is located in Rüschlikon, near Zurich. The GDI is located on the edge of the Park im Grüene. Established on 1 Sept ...

as one of top influencers of Arabic public opinion. Her 2018 novel ''Here is a body'', translated by Jonathan Wright, was published in English in 2011 by Hoopoe, an imprint of

American University of Cairo The American University in Cairo (AUC; ) is a private research university in New Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels, along with a continuing education program. ...

Press.

Works

Fiction

* ''May God Make it Easy'', 2008 * ''The Boy Who Disappeared'', 2008 * ''Al-Tabuur'' (''The Queue''), 2013 * ''Hona Badan (Here Is A Body)'', 2018 * The blueberry Years (Aawam Al touts), 2022

Non-fiction

* Temptation of Absolute Power, 2009 *Beyond Torture, 2011 * Memory of Repression, 2014 * The Power of the Text, 2016

References

External links

Essay by Abdel Aziz on writing ‘The Queue’
at arablit.org
Excerpt from Abdel Aziz novel ''The Queue''
translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
Excerpt from Abdel Aziz novel ''Here is a body,''
translated by Jonathan Wright
Abdel Aziz essay ''Reflections on the President’s Discourse''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abdel Aziz, Basma 1976 births Living people Egyptian psychiatrists Egyptian novelists Egyptian women writers