Basma Abdel Aziz Explained

Basma Abdel Aziz (Arabic: بسمة عبد العزيز, born 1976 in Cairo, Egypt) is an Egyptian writer, psychiatrist, visual artist and human rights activist, nicknamed 'the rebel'.[1] She lives in Cairo and is a weekly columnist for Egypt's al-Shorouk 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 and other distinctions.[2]

Life and career

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.[3]

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,[4] and Melville House published an English translation by Elisabeth Jaquette in 2016.[5] In 2017, this satirical novel won the English PEN Translation Award.[6] 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.[7]

In 2016, she was called one of Foreign Policy 's Leading Global Thinkers.[8] In 2018, she was named by The Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute as one of top influencers of Arabic public opinion.[9] 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.[10]

Works

Fiction

Non-fiction

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Mohammed Shoair, Basma Abdul Aziz: The Ever-Ready Egyptian Rebel, Al-Akhbar English, March 28, 2012. Accessed March 9, 2018.
  2. Web site: Curtis Brown. www.curtisbrown.co.uk. 2018-03-17.
  3. Web site: Daum. Rachael. 2015-12-29. Basma Abdel Aziz: ‘The Worst Thing Is That Publishers Are Scared, Too’. live. 2021-08-20. ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly. en-US. https://web.archive.org/web/20151229073857/http://arablit.org/2015/12/29/basma-abdel-aziz-the-worst-thing-is-that-publishers-are-scared-too/ . 2015-12-29 .
  4. 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
  5. Book: The Queue. Melville House. 2016. 9781612195162. en-US.
  6. Web site: Basma Abdel Aziz. 2021-08-20. Words Without Borders.
  7. Web site: 2021-07-29. "In fiction one is always allowed to break rules". 2021-08-20. AUCPress. en-US. 2021-08-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20210820085630/https://aucpress.com/auc-press-blog/in-fiction-one-is-always-allowed-to-break-rules/. dead.
  8. News: Shubbak: Basma Abdel Aziz in conversation with Jo Glanville - English PEN. English PEN. 2018-03-17. en-US.
  9. News: Basma Abdel Aziz - Global Influence. en-US. Global Influence. dead. 2018-03-17. 2020-10-31. https://web.archive.org/web/20201031194906/http://www.globalinfluence.world/en/leader/basma-abdel-aziz/.
  10. Web site: 2021-07-28. "In fiction one is always allowed to break rules". 2021-08-20. Hoopoe. en-US.

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