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Mysterious men are rounding up street children and enrolling them in a so-called “rehabilitation program,” designed to indoctrinate them for the military-backed regime’s imminent crackdown on its opponents. Across town, thousands of protesters encamp in a city square demanding the return of the recently deposed president.
Reminiscent of recent clashes in Egypt and reflective of political movements worldwide where civilians face off against state power, Abdel Aziz deftly illustrates the universal human struggles between resisting and succumbing to an oppressive regime.
Here Is A Body is a courageous and powerful depiction of the state cooptation of human bodies, the dehumanization of marginalized groups, and the use of inflammatory religious rhetoric to manipulate a narrative.
"An unflinching and deeply humane masterwork by a writer of astounding talent and courage."—Omar El Akkad, author of What Strange Paradise
"Refusing silence in Egypt. . . . Here is a Body is urgent . . . sprawling . . . [with a] conscientious impulse to record."—The New York Review of Books
"Dynamic and powerful writing, brilliantly translated by Jonathan Wright."—Banipal
"I loved Here Is a Body. It's absolutely brilliant!"—Beth Baron, CUNY
"Abdel Aziz explores the deepest aspects of what it is to be a human being: If you can’t trust your own eyes, friends, history, and memories, who—what—do you become? . . . Names and locations may be superfluous in a world of soulless governments and capitalistic opportunists, but in Here Is a Body, Abdel Aziz stirringly shows us, and demands of us: to witness, name, and remember."—World Literature Today
"Haunting . . . bracing . . . This potent novel about powerful regimes and their constant rhetoric is nonetheless hopeful about powerless voices within those regimes who recognize their own manipulation. Here is a Body handles religion, politics, community, and family with provocative vitality."—Foreword Reviews
"Quite an interesting book to read and discuss, given the times that we are living through."—Alicia Wallace, The Tribune 242
"A disturbing but vital read"—Arab News
"Nuanced"—The World Today, Chatham House
Basma Abdel Aziz is an award-winning writer, sculptor, and psychiatrist, specializing in treating victims of torture. A weekly columnist for Egypt’s al-Shorouk newspaper, she was named a Foreign Policy Global Thinker, and a Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute top influencer in the Arab world. A long-standing vocal critic of government oppression in Egypt, she is the winner of the Sawiris Cultural Award, the General Organization for Cultural Palaces Award, and the Ahmed Bahaa-Eddin Award. Her critically acclaimed debut novel The Queue won the English PEN Translation Award and has been translated into Turkish, Portuguese, Italian, and German. She lives in Cairo.
Jonathan Wright is the translator of the winning novel in the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and twice winner of the Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation. He was formerly the Reuters bureau chief in Cairo and has translated Alaa Al Aswany, Youssef Ziedan, and Hassan Blassim. He lives in London, UK.