The QueueBy Basma Abdel Aziz (2013)1. Basma Abdel Aziz, an Egyptian psychiatrist and journalist, published this powerful allegorical novel a year after the Arab Spring ended. The book’s reference to that rebellion and its thwarted hopes evoke a vision of defeat searing in its clarity. “The Queue” is the tale of a popular revolt against an unnamed autocratic regime in an unnamed Arab country. The totalitarian government “had come into power many years earlier,” we learn, “in the wake of a popular uprising known as the First...

Source: Wall Street Journal September 25, 2020 14:26 UTC