Nawal El Saadawi has been pilloried, censored, imprisoned and exiled for her refusal to accept the oppressions imposed on women by gender and class. In her life and in her writings, this struggle against sexual discrimination has always been linked to a struggle against all forms of oppression: religious, racial, colonial and neo-colonial. In 1969, she published her first
Nawal El Saadawi has been pilloried, censored, imprisoned and exiled for her refusal to accept the oppressions imposed on women by gender and class. In her life and in her writings, this struggle against sexual discrimination has always been linked to a struggle against all forms of oppression: religious, racial, colonial and neo-colonial. In 1969, she published her first work of non-fiction, "Women and Sex"; in 1972, her writings and her struggles led to her dismissal from her job. From then on there was no respite; imprisonment under Sadat in 1981 was the culmination of the long war she had fought for Egyptian women's social and intellectual freedom. "A Daughter of Isis" is the autobiography of this extraordinary woman.
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Paperback
,
320 pages
Published
July 30th 1999
by Zed Books
(first published 1999)
I would like to write a long and beautiful review of this book, but as usual I dont have too much time. I am writing a disertation and I try to use some free time to read another books to clean my mind. I just encourage to everybody to read this book, written with an agile and clear prose, full of poetry and beauty.Nawal El Saadawi is a strong character, a powerful woman who fought agaisnt lot of prejudices in Egypt in her childhood and youth and she tell things without patronize, plainly and ob
I would like to write a long and beautiful review of this book, but as usual I dont have too much time. I am writing a disertation and I try to use some free time to read another books to clean my mind. I just encourage to everybody to read this book, written with an agile and clear prose, full of poetry and beauty.Nawal El Saadawi is a strong character, a powerful woman who fought agaisnt lot of prejudices in Egypt in her childhood and youth and she tell things without patronize, plainly and objectively, from my point of view. I recommend it.
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How Nawal El Saadawi managed to emancipate herself from the misogynic constraints she grew up with is impressive and inspiring, therefore I enjoyed reading her autobiography. However, I`m not sure about her style - sometimes it felt so flowery, repetitive and verbose that I found it distracting.
How Nawal El Saadawi managed to emancipate herself from the misogynic constraints she grew up with is impressive and inspiring, therefore I enjoyed reading her autobiography. However, I`m not sure about her style - sometimes it felt so flowery, repetitive and verbose that I found it distracting.
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I read this over the summer when Nawal was coming to Springfield for a lecture. I missed the lecture but the story of her life is incredible. This is an awe-inspiring look at the life of a young Egyptian woman in a strict male-dominated society. The focus is on her early years, does not touch much on her activism and political work for women in her homeland, but you definitely get to know her by the end of the book.
This book has stayed with me for years. It is an intense picture into the life of a woman who was both suppressed and inspired by her native culture.
She brings insight into the cultural and religious life of her countrymen without vitriol or anger. She also highlights the plight of women worldwide who are still suppressed and abused by the culture into which they are born.
Pretty standard autiobiography, I'm really just giving it megaprops because this lady is so cool. If you haven't read her book
Woman At Point Zero
, do it immediately (triggering though)
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 Dir
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.
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“Memory is never complete. There are always parts of it that time has amputated. Writing is a way of retrieving them, of bringing the missing parts back to it, of making it more holistic.”
—
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