Nawal El Saadawi was an internationally renowned writer, novelist and fighter for women's rights both within Egypt and abroad.

Born in 1931, in a village outside Cairo, she wrote her first novel, Diary of a Child Called Souad, at the age of thirteen. Unusually, she and her brothers and sisters were educated together. After graduating from the University of Cairo Medical School in 1955, specializing in psychiatry, she practised as a medical doctor for two years.

From 1963 until 1972, Saadawi worked for the Egyptian government as Director General for Public Health Education. During this time, she studied at Columbia University in New York, where she received her Master's degree in Public Health in 1966. In 1972, however, she lost her job in the government as a result of political pressure. The magazine Health, which she founded and had 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 renowned 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 her study of Arab women, The Hidden Face of Eve.

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 Sadat's assassination. In 1982, she established the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, which was outlawed in 1991. For some years during the Mubarak regime, Saadawi lived in exile, teaching in universities in the USA and Europe, including Duke University and Washington State University. Saadawi 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 achieved widespread international recognition for her work. She held honorary doctorates from, among others, the universities of York, Illinois at Chicago, St Andrews and Tromso as well as Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her many prizes and awards include the Premi Internacional Catalunya in 2003, the Council of Europe North-South Prize in 2004, the Women of the Year Award (UK) in 2011, the Sean MacBride Peace Prize (Ireland) in 2012, and the French National Order of Merit in 2013. Her books have been translated into over forty languages worldwide. They are taught in universities across the world.

Acknowledgements
Preface - Nawal El Saadawi
Timeline
Introduction - Adele Newson-Horst
Part I: Articles/Essays/Non-fictional Prose
1. How to Write and Why
2. How to Fight Against the Postmodern Slave System
3. First Trip Outside the Homeland
4. Introduction to The Hidden Face of Eve
5. The Seventh International AWSA Conference
6. Women and the Poor
7. God Above, Husband Below
8. The House of Desolation
9. The Streetwalker and the Woman Writer
10. Muslim Women in the Market
11. Bodour
12. Writing and Freedom
13. The Three Universal Taboos: Sex, Religion, and Politics
14. Breeding Terror or an Uncivilized Clash of Civilizations
15. Breeding Terror or an Uncivilized Clash of Civilizations
16. Fear and Writing
17. Obama's Speech in Cairo

Part II: Fiction and Poetry
18. Death of an Ex-Minister
19. My Ideal Mother
20. A Paper that was Never Presented for Publication
21. Sixteen Short Poems
22. Inspired by the Summit Meeting with the Elite
23. The Impact of Fanatic Religious Thought

Part III: Drama
24. Twelve Women in a Cell

Part IV: Interviews and Criticism
25. Feminism in Egypt: A Conversation with Nawal El Saadawi
26. Fed Up with Limited Thinking: An Interview
27. Conversations with Nawal El Saadawi
28. Nawal El Saadawi's Fall of the Imam: The Daughter of the Goddess of the Land Fells the Imam and Rises Again

Part V: Bibliographies
29. Bibliography of Book Length Works
30. Bibliography of Interviews
31. Bibliography of Criticism