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Illustrated portrait of Sabah

A character in The Queue

Sabah

Sabah is a nurse who has known Tarek since his early medical career.

The book

Cover of The Queue by Basma Abdel Aziz
The QueueBasma Abdel Aziz, 2013

An endless queue waits before a bureaucracy that controls permits, medicine, information, and official reality.

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Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Sabah is a nurse who has known Tarek since his early medical career. She appears helpful and familiar, but she supplies the Gate with observations about Yehya and Tarek. Her additions turn the patient file into a living surveillance document. She later uses knowledge of Tarek’s secret attention to the case to pressure him. The novel does not provide a final reckoning for her; she remains an example of ordinary professional complicity.

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