| Nawal El Saadawi has been pilloried, censored, imprisoned and exiled for her refusal to accept the oppression of women. For her, writing is akin to action, and she has produced some of the most evocative and disturbing novels ever written about Arab women. Born in a small Egyptian village in 1931, Nawal El Saadawi managed to escape the prospective suitors her family presented her when she was just ten years old, and went on to study medicine. In 1969, she published her first work of non-fiction, Women and Sex. In 1972, her writings brought her dismissal from her job, and the struggles she fought for Egyptian women’s social and intellectual freedom led to her imprisonment in 1981. In 1992, her name appeared on a death list issued by a fundamentalist group and she was forced into exile for five years. Since then, she has devoted her time to writing novels and essays and to her activities as a world-wide speaker on women’s issues. ‘Leading spokeswoman on the status of women in the Arab world’ – The Guardian ‘Nawal El Saadawi writes with directness and passion, transforming the systematic brutalization of peasants and women into powerful allegory’ – New York Times Book Review ‘This is a book we should all be reading’ – Doris Lessing on A Daughter of Isis |
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