Nawal El Saadawi

1.     Saadawi’s biography

Born into a well educated family in 1931 in the small village of Kafr Tahal, Egypt. Nawal El Saadawi is a novelist, psychiatrist, and author of more than forty books and non-fiction has had a major influence on the lives of women of color all over the world. She has witnessed humiliating and unfair practices, both in her profession as a doctor and later as a writer. This has led her to speak out in support of political and sexual rights for women and constantly reiterate women’s power in resistance. As a result she has been imprisoned (this is detailed in her book My Travels Around the World) and arrested on more than one occasion - as such she is a person that is set in the process of history, making it and challenging its legacy.

2.     Career

·         1955:  she qualified as a doctor in 1955 and rose to become Egypt’s Director of Public Health.

·         1972: her first work of non-fiction. Women and Sex, evoked the antagonism of highly placed political and theological authorities, and the Ministry of Health was pressurized into dismissing her. Under similar pressures she lost her post as Chief Editor of a health journal and as Assistant General Secretary in the Medical Association in Egypt.

·         1973 - 1976: she worked in researching women and neurosis in the Ain Shams University’s Faculty of Medicine

·         1979 to 1980: she was the United Nations Advisor for the Women’s Programme in Africa (ECA) and Middle East (ECWA).

·         1980: as a culmination of the long war she had fought for Egyptian women’s social and intellectual freedom, an activity that had closed all avenues of official jobs to her, she was imprisoned under the Sadat regime.

3.     Education

1955: Cairo University, Medial Doctor, Egypt.

1966: Columbia University, New York MPH.

1972-1974: Ain Shams University, Cairo Egypt
Psychiatric Section. Research on Women and Neuroses.

4.     Masterpieces

FICTION:

a. NOVELS (in Arabic):

Memoirs of a Woman Doctor (Cairo, 1958)
The Absent One (Cairo, 1969)
Two Women in One (Cairo, 1971)
Woman at Point Zero (Beirut, 1973)
The Death of the Only Man on Earth (Beirut, 1975)
The Children’s Circling Song (Beirut, 1976)
The Fall of the Imam (Cairo, 1987)
Ganat and the Devil (Beirut, 1991)
Love in the Kingdom of Oil (Cairo, 1993)
The Novel,   Dar El Hilal  Publishers  (Cairo 2004)
Dar  Al Saqi   (Beirut, 2009)

b. SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS (in Arabic):

I Learnt Love (Cairo, 1957)
A Moment of Truth (Cairo, 1959)
Little Tenderness (Cairo, 1960)
The Thread and the Wall (Cairo, 1972)
Ain El Hayat (Beirut, 1976)
She was the Weaker (Beirut, 1977)
Death of an Ex-minister (Beirut, 1978)
Adab Am Kellet Abad (Cairo, 2000)

PLAYS (in Arabic):

Twelve Women in a Cell (Cairo, 1984)
Isis (Cairo, 1985)
God Resigns in the Summit Meeting (1996), published by Madbouli,  and  
other  four  plays    included   in   her   Collected   Works  (  45   books  in   Arabic  )     published    by   Madbouli   in   Cairo  2007

NON-FICTION:

MEMOIRS (in Arabic):

Memoirs in a Women’s Prison (Cairo, 1983)
My Travels Around the World (Cairo, 1986)
Memoirs of a Child Called Soad (Cairo, 1990)
My Life, Part I, Autobiography (Cairo, 1996)
My Life, Part II, Autobiography (Cairo, 1998)
My Life, Part III, (Cairo, 2001)

a.      BOOKS (  Non  Fiction  ) (in Arabic):

Women and Sex (Cairo, 1969)
Woman is the Origin (Cairo, 1971)
Men and Sex (Cairo, 1973)
The Naked Face of Arab Women (Cairo, 1974)
Women and Neurosis (Cairo, 1975)
On Women (Cairo, 1986)
A New Battle in Arab Women Liberation (Cairo, 1992)
Collection of Essays (Cairo, 1998)
Collection of Essays (Cairo, 2001)
Breaking Down Barriers (Cairo, 2004)

b.      Books Translated Into English:

The Hidden Face of Eve [Study] (London: Zed Books, 1980) ,  re issued  2008 
Woman at Point Zero [novel] (London: Zed Books, 1982),  re issued  2008
God Dies by the Nile [novel] (London: Zed Books, 1984) reissued   2008 
Circling Song [novel] (London: Zed Books, 1986)  reissued  2008
The Fall of Imam [novel] (London: Methuen, 1987)  Saqui  Books   London   2001  ,  2009 
Searching [novel] (London: Zed Books, 1988)  reissued  2008 
Death of an Ex-minister [short stories] (London: Methuen, 1987)
She has no Place in Paradise [short stories] (London: Methuen, 1987)
My Travel Around the World [non-fiction] (London: Methuen, 1985)

5.      Award

She had gotten a lot of awards, some of them are:

Doctorate honorary degree, Mexico University - 23 September  2010  
Pan   African  Writers   Association  Literary    Award   and   Honorary   Membership ,  Ghana ,   Acra ,   November   2009 
African Literature Association Award, University of West Virginia, Morgantown,  March  2007
Honorary   Doctorate   Degree   Flemish   University  -  Brussels  VUB  ,  Belgium   November  2007
Honorary   Doctorate   Degree    French   University  -  Brussels  ULB   Belgium    November   2007  
INANA Award, Brussels, Belgium, 2004
European Council North-South Award, 2004
XV Premi International Catalunia Award, 2003
Honorary Doctorate Degree, University of Tromso, Norway, 2003
International Writer of the Year for 2003, nominated by the International Biographical Centre,
Cambridge England
One of the Great Minds of the 21 Century Award by the International Biographical Institute,
North Carolina USA 2003
Honorary Doctorate, University of St. Andrews-Scotland, 1997
Honorary Doctorate, University of Illinois as Chicago, 1996
Honorary Doctorate, University of York, United Kingdom, 1994
First Degree Decoration of the Republic of Libya, 1989
Literary Award of Gubran, (Arab Association of Australian Awards), 1988
Literary Award by the Franco-Arab Friendship Association, Paris, France, 1982
Literary Award by the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo, Egypt 1974

Bibliography

Saadawi, El Nawal. 1998. The fall of the imam. London: mandarin paperback.

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