Nawal El Saadawi’s Followers (3,034)

Nawal El Saadawi

Born

in Kafr Tahla, Egypt

October 27, 1931

Died

March 21, 2021

Website

http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/

Genre

Nonfiction, Women & Gender Studies, Biographies & Memoirs

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Nawal El Saadawi (Arabic: نوال السعداوي) was born in 1931, in a small village outside Cairo. Unusually, she and her brothers and sisters were educated together, and she graduated from the University of Cairo Medical School in 1955, specializing in psychiatry. For two years, she practiced as a medical doctor, both at the university and in her native Tahla.

From 1963 until 1972, Saadawi worked as Director General for Public Health Education for the Egyptian government. During this time, she also studied at Columbia University in New York, where she received her Master of Public Health degree in 1966. Her first novel Memoirs of a Woman Doctor was published in Cairo in 1958. In 1972, however, she lost her job in the Egyptian government as a resu Nawal El Saadawi (Arabic: نوال السعداوي) was born in 1931, in a small village outside Cairo. Unusually, she and her brothers and sisters were educated together, and she graduated from the University of Cairo Medical School in 1955, specializing in psychiatry. For two years, she practiced as a medical doctor, both at the university and in her native Tahla.

From 1963 until 1972, Saadawi worked as Director General for Public Health Education for the Egyptian government. During this time, she also studied at Columbia University in New York, where she received her Master of Public Health degree in 1966. Her first novel Memoirs of a Woman Doctor was published in Cairo in 1958. In 1972, however, she lost her job in the Egyptian government as a result of political pressure. The magazine, Health, which she had founded and edited for more than three years, was closed down.

From 1973 to 1978 Saadawi worked at the High Institute of Literature and Science. It was at this time that she began to write, in works of fiction and non-fiction, the books on the oppression of Arab women for which she has become famous. Her most famous novel, Woman at Point Zero was published in Beirut in 1973. It was followed in 1976 by God Dies by the Nile and in 1977 by The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World.

In 1981 Nawal El Saadawi publicly criticized the one-party rule of President Anwar Sadat, and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. She was released one month after his assassination. In 1982, she established the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, which was outlawed in 1991. When, in 1988, her name appeared on a fundamentalist death list, she and her second husband, Sherif Hetata, fled to the USA, where she taught at Duke University and Washington State University. She returned to Egypt in 1996.

In 2004 she presented herself as a candidate for the presidential elections in Egypt, with a platform of human rights, democracy and greater freedom for women. In July 2005, however, she was forced to withdraw her candidacy in the face of ongoing government persecution.

Nawal El Saadawi has achieved widespread international recognition for her work. She holds honorary doctorates from the universities of York, Illinois at Chicago, St Andrews and Tromso. Her many prizes and awards include the Great Minds of the Twentieth Century Prize, awarded by the American Biographical Institute in 2003, the North-South Prize from the Council of Europe and the Premi Internacional Catalunya in 2004. Her books have been translated into over 28 languages worldwide. They are taught in universities across the world.

She now works as a writer, psychiatrist and activist. Her most recent novel, entitled Al Riwaya was published in Cairo in 2004. ...more

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Nawal El Saadawi’s books

Average rating: 3.87 · 50,963 ratings · 7,637 reviews · 116 distinct works • Similar authors

	Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, Sherif Hetata (Translator) 4.19 avg rating — 23,531 ratings — published 1975 — 87 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	المرأة والجنس by Nawal El Saadawi, نوال السعداوي 3.79 avg rating — 4,302 ratings — published 1968 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	مذكرات طبيبة by Nawal El Saadawi, نوال السعداوي 3.47 avg rating — 4,181 ratings — published 1958 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	مذكراتي في سجن النساء by Nawal El Saadawi, نوال السعداوي 3.94 avg rating — 2,133 ratings — published 1982 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World 4.01 avg rating — 1,652 ratings — published 1977 — 54 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	God Dies by the Nile 3.55 avg rating — 1,155 ratings — published 1974 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	سقوط الإمام by Nawal El Saadawi, نوال السعداوي 3.27 avg rating — 1,136 ratings — published 1987 — 27 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	الأنثى هي الأصل by Nawal El Saadawi, نوال السعداوي 3.90 avg rating — 927 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	المرأة والصراع النفسي by Nawal El Saadawi, نوال السعداوي 3.98 avg rating — 803 ratings — published 1976 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Zeina by Nawal El Saadawi, Amira Nowaira (Translation) 3.22 avg rating — 940 ratings — published 2008 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Nawal El Saadawi…

Series by Nawal El Saadawi

أوراقي.. حياتي (3 books)
by

Nawal El Saadawi,

نوال السعداوي

4.08 avg rating — 713 ratings

رحلاتي حول العالم (3 books)
by

Nawal El Saadawi,

نوال السعداوي

3.63 avg rating — 198 ratings

Quotes by Nawal El Saadawi (?)

“Life is very hard. The only people who really live are those who are harder than life itself.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero

1692 likes

“They said, “You are a savage and dangerous woman.”
I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero

249 likes

“Yet not for a single moment did I have any doubts about my own integrity and honour as a woman. I knew that my profession had been invented by men, and that men were in control of both our worlds, the one on earth, and the one in heaven. That men force women to sell their bodies at a price, and that the lowest paid body is that of a wife. All women are prostitutes of one kind or another.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero

143 likes

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Polls

June 2022 New School Poll

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, 1916, 329 pages

66 votes, 23.2%

A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, 1982, 183 pages

53 votes, 18.6%

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion, 1968, 238 pages

43 votes, 15.1%

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler, 1993, 329 pages

43 votes, 15.1%

Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, 1902, 210 pages

32 votes, 11.2%

Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi, 1977, 128 pages

28 votes, 9.8%

Independent People by Halldór Laxness, 1934, 482 pages

20 votes, 7.0%

285 total votes

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