World Tour Stellar Reading Challenge – Egypt
Translated from Arabic
3.6/5 When I sought a books set in Egypt, preferably translated from a language other than English for the 2023 World Tour Stellar Reading Challenge (SRC), all roads led to Basma Abdel Aziz’s The Queue. In fact, this shorter book, available via my library’s Libby holding, seemed designed for this particular SRC. The cover, an Egyptian-style eye, further compelled me to read it.
Learn more about these 2023 SRC by clicking here.
Click here to discover more about 2024 SRC.
Trigger Warnings (TW): body horror (gun wound), torture, sexism, religion, war, governmental oppression, loss of a loved one
“Set against the backdrop of a failed political uprising, The Queue is a chilling debut that evokes Orwellian dystopia, Kafkaesque surrealism, and a very real vision of life after the Arab Spring.… In a surreal, but familiar, vision of modern day Egypt, a centralized authority known as ‘the Gate’ has risen to power in the aftermath of the ‘Disgraceful Events,’ a failed popular uprising. Citizens are required to obtain permission from the Gate in order to take care of even the most basic of their daily affairs, yet the Gate never opens, and the queue in front of it grows longer… Citizens from all walks of life mix and wait in the sun: a revolutionary journalist, a sheikh, a poor woman concerned for her daughter’s health, and even the brother of a security officer killed in clashes with protestors. Among them is Yehia, a man who was shot during the Events and is waiting for permission from the Gate to remove a bullet that remains lodged in his pelvis. Yehia’s health steadily declines, yet at every turn, officials refuse to assist him, actively denying the very existence of the bullet… Ultimately it is Tarek, the principled doctor tending to Yehia’s case, who must decide whether to follow protocol as he has always done, or to disobey the law and risk his career to operate on Yehia and save his life… Written with dark, subtle humor, The Queue describes the sinister nature of authoritarianism, and illuminates the way that absolute authority manipulates information, mobilizes others in service to it, and fails to uphold the rights of even those faithful to it.”
The Queue pulled me in early in my reading of it. This book possessed many characters who passed the “Dad Test of Sympathy.” Among these happens to be Tarek, the doctor seeing to the care of Yehia, another sympathetic character. Yet, I doubt one should feel at ease reading The Queue; the realism of this book shook me up for sometime after I read the last page. All these months later, I still vacillate on my feelings on The Queue.
Quotes come from book flaps/cover and are featured on color blocks.
Starry Night Elf 