Egyptian writers
Nawal El Saadawi: where to start
Nawal El Saadawi was a doctor, a novelist and one of the most influential feminist writers of the Arab world. Here is who she was, which of her books to read first, and where to go next.
Who is Nawal El Saadawi?
El Saadawi was born in 1931 in Kafr Tahla, a village north of Cairo, and died in Cairo in 2021. She trained as a physician and psychiatrist and worked for Egypt’s Ministry of Health.
Her 1969 book Women and Sex, which attacked female genital mutilation and the control of women’s bodies, led to her dismissal from the ministry in 1972. In 1981 she was imprisoned under President Sadat, and wrote her prison memoir, she later said, on a roll of toilet paper with an eyebrow pencil.
She wrote in Arabic, and her books have been translated into dozens of languages.
Where to start
1975
Woman at Point Zero
A woman on death row tells a psychiatrist the story of her life. Short, furious and unforgettable.
1977
The Hidden Face of Eve
Her landmark nonfiction study of women in the Arab world.
1984
Memoirs from the Women’s Prison
Her account of being jailed in 1981 with other women writers and activists.
1974
God Dies by the Nile
A village mayor’s abuse of power, and the woman who finally stands up to him.
Why read Nawal El Saadawi today
El Saadawi wrote with clarity and anger about power, gender and religion. Woman at Point Zero is short enough to read in an evening and stays with readers for years.
Another Egyptian voice
El Saadawi wrote about Egypt’s prisons from the inside. A.M. Khalifa’s Terminal Rage, a very different kind of book, also leads to an Egyptian prison, at the end of a conspiracy that begins in a Manhattan office tower.
A.M. Khalifa grew up in a diplomatic corps family across more than fifteen countries and is the only Egyptian writing commercial espionage fiction in English. His debut, Terminal Rage, has sold more than 500,000 copies and received a starred review from Booklist.
More Egyptian writers
Naguib Mahfouz · Alaa Al Aswany · Ahdaf Soueif · Omar El Akkad · Ahmed Mourad · Ahmed Khaled Towfik · Tawfiq al-Hakim · Taha Hussein · Radwa Ashour · Yusuf Idris · Latifa al-Zayyat · Bahaa Taher · Youssef Ziedan · Sonallah Ibrahim · Ibrahim Abdel Meguid · Ezzedine Choukri Fishere · Khaled Al Khamissi · Mansoura Ez-Eldin · Waguih Ghali · Yasmine El Rashidi · Noor Naga · Omar Robert Hamilton · Nabil Farouk · A.M. Khalifa
Questions
Which Nawal El Saadawi book should I read first?
Woman at Point Zero. It is short, powerful and her best-known novel.
Was Nawal El Saadawi imprisoned?
Yes. She was jailed in 1981 under President Sadat and wrote about it in Memoirs from the Women’s Prison.
Did Nawal El Saadawi write in English?
She wrote in Arabic. Her books are widely available in English translation.
Who are other Egyptian women writers?
Ahdaf Soueif, Radwa Ashour, Latifa al-Zayyat and Mansoura Ez-Eldin. See the full guide to Egyptian writers.