CAIRO, Dec 13 (Aswat Masriya) – Egyptian novelist Basma Abdel Aziz has been named as one of Foreign Policy magazine’s top 100 Global Thinkers for 2016, for "telling an Orwellian tale".

Abdel Aziz, a psychiatrist who has treated victims of torture for years, had her debut novel, The Queue, published in English in 2016.

The novel explores life in an unnamed Middle Eastern country where an administration called “The Gate” assumed power following a failed revolution, referred to as the “Disgraceful Events”. 

The events unfold as civilians stand in never-ending queues in front of the administration's headquarters to get permissions to undertake basic activities. However, the headquarters remain shut.

Foreign Policy magazine said that Abdel Aziz and her fellow chroniclers who were included in the list have all "produced work that felt relevant, accessible, and urgent." The list included a total of nine chroniclers whose narratives "gripped emotions and moved ideological mountains."

Abdel Aziz, 40, is winner of the Sawiris Cultural Award, the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces Award in 2008, and the Ahmed Bahaa-Eddin Award in 2009.