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Illustrated portrait of The short-haired woman

A character in The Queue

The short-haired woman

The short-haired woman is an unnamed organizer in the queue who argues openly for justice and privacy.

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

The short-haired woman is an unnamed organizer in the queue who argues openly for justice and privacy. Her appearance marks her as socially nonconforming, but the book gives her more than symbolic defiance: she writes leaflets, helps lead the Violet Telecom boycott, and keeps organizing after religious and political attacks. Um Mabrouk gives her space despite pressure to expel her. She remains active near the end, though her final fate is not narrated.

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