Nawal El Saadawi is a novelist, a psychiatrist, and a writer, who is well known both in the Arab countries and in many other parts of the world. Her novels and her books on the situation of women have had a deep effect on successive generations of young women over the last four decades.

As a result of her literary and scientific writings she has had to face numerous difficulties and even danger to her life. In 1972 she lost her job in the Egyptian government. The magazine, Health, which she had founded and edited for more than three years, was closed down. In 1981 President Sadat put her in prison. She was released one month after his assassination. From 1988 to 1993 her name figured on death lists issued by fanatical terrorist organizations. She lived in exile for five years. In 2001 she won her case in a Cairo court against forceful divorce from her husband (according to Hisba law). In 2004 Al Azhar in Cairo banned her novel, The Fall of the Imam. Her new Novel entitled Al Riwaya (in Arabic) published in Cairo by Dar Al Hilal (2004) was banned by Al Azhar and the church in Egypt .

Nawal El Saadawi has been awarded several national and international literary prizes, and has lectured in many universities, and organized and participated in many international and national conferences.Her two autobiographical volumes, A Daughter of Isis and Walking Through Fire are available from Spinifex Press. She is the author of many works of fiction and non-fiction.

Photograph by Platon for Human Rights Watch