In this book we see how, from an early age, Saadawi combines her love of the Arabic language with her awareness of gender-based oppression to create texts which are as subversive as they are moving
Modern African Studies
As I finished reading Dr. Nawal's autobiography I felt a sudden sense of loss. I didn't want to leave her. I went back and read the last sections again, and then again, until I remembered how many other books she has written. Then I felt delight that I will be able to return to her words and to her stories, and that so many others will share in them
Bettina Aptheker
This is a book we should all be reading
Doris Lessing
I think her life has been one long death threat. At a time when nobody else was talking, she spoke the unspeakable
Margaret Atwood
Foreword
Preface - The Gift
1. Allah and McDonalds
2. The Cry in the Night
3. God Above, Husband Below
4. We Thank God for our Calamities
5. Flying with the Butterflies
6. Killing the Bridegroom
7. Daughter of the Sea
8. My Revolutionary Father
9. The Lost Servant-Girl
10. The Village of Forgotten Employees
11. God Hid Behind the Coat-Stand
12. The Ministry of Nauseation
13. Dreaming of Pianos
14. To the Circus
15. The Singing Man
16. The Whiskered Peasant
17. Uncles, Suitors and other Bloodsuckers
18. A Stove for my Mother
19. Coming to Cairo
20. The Long, Strong Bones of a Horse
21. Love and the Hideous Cat
22. Art Thieves
23. Mad Aunts and Abandoned Babies
24. The House of Desolation
25. The Secret Communist
26. Wasted Lives
27. Cholera, Ageing and Death
28. The Qur'an Betrayed
29. British English and Holy Arabic
30. The Name of Marx
31. The Brush of History
Afterword - Living in Resistance