Basma Abdel Aziz (

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

: بسمة عبد العزيز, born 1976 in Cairo,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

) is an Egyptian writer,

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...

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

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

and is a weekly columnist for Egypt's ''

al-Shorouk ''Al-Shorouk'', ''Shorouk News'' or ''Al-Shuruq'' ( ar, الشروق "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 poli ...

'' 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 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, additional categories in sc ...

and other distinctions.

Life and career

Born in

, Abdel Aziz holds a

B.A Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

. 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'' ( ar, الأهرام; ''The Pyramids''), founded on 5 August 1875, is the most widely circulating Egyptian daily newspaper, and the second oldest after '' al-Waqa'i`al-Masriya'' (''The Egyptian Events'', founded 1828). It is majori ...

'', 27 Feb 2013. and

Melville House Melville House is a 1697 house that lies to the south side of the Palace of Monimail near Collessie in Fife, Scotland. It has been a school and a training base for Polish soldiers who had arrived in Scotland after the 51st Highland Division ...

published an English translation by

Elisabeth Jaquette Elisabeth Jaquette is an American translator of contemporary Arabic literature. Her work has been shortlisted for the National Book Award and TA First Translation Prize, and supported by the Jan Michalski Foundation, the PEN/Heim Translation Fund, ...

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' associati ...

Translation Award. For its

dystopian A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

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

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

to George Orwell’s

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

and

The Trial ''The Trial'' (german: Der Process, link=no, previously , and ) 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 p ...

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

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

Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

'' '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 ...

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; ar, الجامعة الأمريكية بالقاهرة, Al-Jāmi‘a al-’Amrīkiyya bi-l-Qāhira) is a private research university in Cairo, Egypt. The university offers American-style learning programs ...

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