Basma Abdel Aziz

Born in Cairo, Abdel Aziz holds a B.A. 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.{{Cite web|last=Daum|first=Rachael|date=2015-12-29|title=Basma Abdel Aziz: ‘The Worst Thing Is That Publishers Are Scared, Too’|url=https://arablit.org/2015/12/29/basma-abdel-aziz-the-worst-thing-is-that-publishers-are-scared-too/|url-status=live|access-date=2021-08-20|website=ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly|language=en-US|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151229073857/http://arablit.org/2015/12/29/basma-abdel-aziz-the-worst-thing-is-that-publishers-are-scared-too/ |archive-date=2015-12-29 }}

As a writer, Abdel Aziz gained second place for her short stories in the 2008 Sawiris Cultural Award, 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,[http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContentP/18/65722/Books/New-release-The-Queue-by-Basma-AbdelAziz.aspx New release: 'The Queue' by Basma Abdel-Aziz], Ahram Online, 27 Feb 2013. and Melville House published an English translation by Elisabeth Jaquette in 2016.{{Cite book|last=|first=|url=https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-queue/|title=The Queue|date=|publisher=Melville House|year=2016|isbn=9781612195162|language=en-US}} In 2017, this satirical novel won the English PEN Translation Award.{{Cite web|title=Basma Abdel Aziz|url=https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/contributor/basma-abdel-aziz|access-date=2021-08-20|website=Words Without Borders}} For its dystopian representation of injustice, torture and corruption, it has been compared by the New York Times to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Trial by Franz Kafka. The novel has also been published in Turkish, Portuguese, Italian and German translations.{{Cite web|date=2021-07-29|title="In fiction one is always allowed to break rules"|url=https://aucpress.com/auc-press-blog/in-fiction-one-is-always-allowed-to-break-rules/|access-date=2021-08-20|website=AUCPress|language=en-US|archive-date=2021-08-20|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210820085630/https://aucpress.com/auc-press-blog/in-fiction-one-is-always-allowed-to-break-rules/|url-status=dead}}

In 2016, she was called one of Foreign Policy 's Leading Global Thinkers.{{Cite news|url=https://www.englishpen.org/event/basma-abdel-aziz/|title=Shubbak: Basma Abdel Aziz in conversation with Jo Glanville - English PEN|work=English PEN|access-date=2018-03-17|language=en-US}} In 2018, she was named by The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute as one of top influencers of Arabic public opinion.{{Cite news|title=Basma Abdel Aziz - Global Influence|language=en-US|work=Global Influence|url=http://www.globalinfluence.world/en/leader/basma-abdel-aziz/|url-status=usurped|access-date=2018-03-17|archive-date=2020-10-31|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031194906/http://www.globalinfluence.world/en/leader/basma-abdel-aziz/}} 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 Press.{{Cite web|date=2021-07-28|title="In fiction one is always allowed to break rules"|url=https://hoopoefiction.com/2021/07/28/in-fiction-one-is-always-allowed-to-break-rules-basma-abdel-aziz/|access-date=2021-08-20|website=Hoopoe|language=en-US}}

• 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

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

• Contemporary Arabic literature
• Egyptian literature

• John C. Hawley: Coping with a failed revolution: Basma Abdel Aziz, Nael Eltoukhy, Mohammed Rabie & Yasmine El Rashidi. In: Ernest N. Emenyonu (ed.): Focus on Egypt. Boydell & Brewer, Suffolk 2017, pp. 7–21. DOI: https://doi-org.uaccess.univie.ac.at/10.1017/9781787442351.003.
• Lindsey Moore: ‘What happens after saying no?’ Egyptian uprisings and afterwords in Basma Abdel Aziz's The Queue and Omar Robert Hamilton's The City Always Wins. In: CounterText 4/2. 2018, pp. 192–211.

{{Reflist|2}}

• [https://arablit.org/2017/08/31/basma-abdel-aziz-on-writing-the-queue/ Essay by Abdel Aziz on writing ‘The Queue’] at arablit.org
• [https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/january-2016-captivity-the-queue Excerpt from Abdel Aziz novel The Queue], translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
• [https://hoopoefiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/AbdelAziz_Here_is_a_Body-9781649030818_Extract.pdf Excerpt from Abdel Aziz novel Here is a body,] translated by Jonathan Wright
• [https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/july-2017-shubbak-festival-reflections-on-the-presidents-discourse-basma Abdel Aziz essay Reflections on the President’s Discourse]

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Category:1976 births

Category:Living people

Category:Egyptian psychiatrists

Category:Egyptian novelists

Category:Egyptian women writers