Nawal El Saadawi

Standard Name: El Saadawi, Nawal
Birth Name: Nawal El Saadawi
Egyptian feminist author NES wrote hard-hitting polemic on social and political topics (unjust legal systems, interrogation, censorship, misuse of political power) and especially women's topics—clitoridectomy, prostitution, forced marriage, rape, honour killing, the hijab, and other burning issues for Islamic women, for whom, says the Feminist Companion, she was [t]he outstanding voice. The same source notes that her speeches combine psychiatric acuity, the authority of personal experience, and political courage.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
She published a number of novels (her favourite genre) and short stories, two volumes of autobiography, and untranslated plays and travel writing: fifty-five books, translated into more than thirty languages.
Khaleeli, Homa. “’I have a rebel gene’”. The Guardian, 16 Apr. 2010, pp. G2: 18 - 20.
19-20
She began publishing her prolific output in Arabic; not all of her works have reached English, and for years a long time-lag typically intervened before they were translated. This makes for a complicated and confusing bibliography. Her work has now become sought-after by publishers in the English-speaking world
Colour photo of Nawal El Saadawi at the Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden, 2010. She is leaning forward speaking animatedly into a microphone, wearing a blue jacket and a thin pink scarf. Her white hair is tied in two long bunches.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Intertextuality and Influence Ketaki Kushari Dyson
In this volume, KKD shifts from her previous focus on the challenge of negotiating English and Indian cultures to the female experience of sexual and physical subordination and to female connections (though the interplay of...

Timeline

1984: The publishing company Saqi Books was founded...

Writing climate item

1984

The publishing company Saqi Books was founded in London by André Gaspard and Mai Ghoussoub (sculptor and writer) to bridge the divide between Middle Eastern and Western cultures. It publishes a highly international list.
“About Us”. Saqi Books.
“About Us”. Alsaqi Bookshop.
al-Shaykh, Hanan. “The week in books”. The Guardian, 24 May 2008, p. Review 5.
5

Texts

El Saadawi, Nawal. “A ban on the niqab won’ end the injustices meted out to Egypt’s women”. theguardian.com.
El Saadawi, Nawal. A Daughter of Isis. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Zed, 1999.
El Saadawi, Nawal, and Nawal El Saadawi. “Afterword for the American edition”. Memoirs from the Women’s Prison, translated by. Marilyn Booth and Marilyn Booth, University of California Press, 1994, pp. 199-04.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Death of an Ex-Minister. Translator Eber, Shirley, Methuen, 1987.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Diary of a Child Called Souad. Editor Amin, Omnia, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
El Saadawi, Nawal. God Dies by the Nile. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Zed, 1985.
El Saadawi, Nawal. “In the Women’s Prison”. Index on Censorship, Vol.
18
, No. 4, 1985, pp. 36-8.
El Saadawi, Nawal. “Introduction: Why is Nawal El Saadawi Banned?”. Diary of a Child Called Souad, edited by Omnia Amin, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 1-24.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Love in the Kingdom of Oil. Translators Hatim, Basil and Malcolm Williams, Saqi Books, 2001.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Memoirs from the Women’s Prison. Translator Booth, Marilyn, Women’s Press, 1986.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Memoirs of a Woman Doctor. Translator Cobham, Catherine, Saqi Books, 1988.
El Saadawi, Nawal. “New song of Egypt’s elite”. theguardian.com.
El Saadawi, Nawal. “New song of Egypt’s elite”. Guardian.co.uk.
El Saadawi, Nawal. The Circling Song. Translator Booth, Marilyn, Zed, 1989.
El Saadawi, Nawal. The Fall of the Imam. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Methuen, 1988.
El Saadawi, Nawal. The Hidden Face of Eve. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Zed, 1980.
El Saadawi, Nawal. The Innocence of the Devil. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Methuen, 1994.
El Saadawi, Nawal. The Nawal El Saadawi Reader. Zed, 1997.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Two Women in One. Translators Nusairi, Osman and Jana Gough, Saqi Books, 1985.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Walking through Fire. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Zed, 2002.
El Saadawi, Nawal. Woman at Point Zero. Translator Hetata, Sherif, Zed, 1983.