Nawal El Saadawi

Curriculum Vitae and List of Books (  2009  )

Address in Cairo:
19 MAAHAD    NASSER    STREET     BLG. 1
SHOUBRA GARDENS     11241
CAIRO     EGYPT
Telephone:+  (202)  2 202 2278  Fax:  +  (202)  2 203 5001

Email: nawalalsaadawi@yahoo.com
Web:   www.nawalsaadawi.net

Education:

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

Columbia University, New York
MPH  , 1966

Cairo University  , Medial  Doctor    ,   Egypt,  , 1955

Professional Experience:

Distinguished Visiting Professor
Duke University, 1993-1996
University of Washington, Seattle, 1995
University of Illinois at Chicago, 1998
Florida Atlantic University, 1999
Montclair University, 2001-2002
University of Southern Maine, 2003
University of Autonoma, Barcelona, Winter 2004
Smiths College, Massachusetts, Autumn 2004
Claremont California University, 2005
Spelman   College (  Cosby  Chair )   Atlanta   USA   2007 to  2009   
Head of Women’s program in UN-ECA, Addis Ababa, 1978-1979; UN-ECA, Beirut, 1978-80
Author for the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo, 1974-1978
Director General of the Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, 1966-1972
Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health, 1955-1965

Other Professional Activities:

Founder and President, Arab Women’s Solidarity Association (AWSA), 1982-Present
Founder, Noon Magazine, 1989-1991 and Health Magazine 1968-1973
Co-Founder, Arab Association for Human Rights, 1983-1987
Founder Vice-President, African Association for Women on Research Development. Dakar,     
Senegal, 1977-1987
President and Organizer, International Conference on the Challenges Facing Arab Women,
Cairo, September, 1986, and other international conferences of AWSA, 1988, 1990,
1992, 1997,  2001   -   2005     Cairo   Egypt    
Organizer   of   the   International   Conference   on   Creativity   and  Dissidence   at   Spelman    College  ,  2009    Atlanta    USA 
Founder, Health Education Association and Chief Editor, Health Magazine, Cairo, Egypt,
1968-1974
Founder, Egyptian Women Writer’s Association, 1971
Secretary General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, 1968-1972
Editor of Medical Association Magazine, 1968-1972

AWARDS:

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

PUBLICATION:

All originals in Arabic. Many have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Italian, Dutch, Finnish, Indonesian, Japanese, Iranian, Turkish, Urdu, and other  30    languages.

FICTION:
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
Zeina    ,   Novel  ,     Dar  Al Saqi   Beirut  ,   2009 

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)

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)

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)
Memoirs from the Women’s Prison [non-fiction] (London: Women’s Press, 1985) (also: University of California Press, USA, 1995)
Two Women in One [novel] (London: Al-Saqi Books, 1992)
Memoirs of a Women Doctor [novel] (London: Methuen, 1994) (also: City Lights, USA, 1993) _
The Well of Life [two novels] (London: Methuen, 1994)
The Innocence of the Devil [novel] (London: Methuen, 1994) (also: University of California
Press, 1995)
Nawal El Saadawi Reader [non-fiction essays] (London: Zed Books, 1997)
Vol  11  Nawal  El  Saadawi   Reader  ,   Zed Books  2009 
Part I A Daughter of Isis [autobiography] (London: Zed Books, 1999)  reissued  2008
Part II Walking Through Fire [autobiography] (London: Zed Books, 2002)  reissued   2008   
Love in the Kingdom of oil [novel] (London: Alsaqui Books, 2001)

A SHORT BIOGRAPHY:

Nawal El Saadawi is a  world   renowned   writer   .   She   is   a    novelist, a  psychiatrist, and    author   of    more   than   forty   books   fiction   and   non fiction   .  She   writes  in  Arabic   and   lives  in  Egypt    .  Her novels and her books on the situation of women have had a deep effect on successive generations of young women  and  men  over the last   five    decades.

As a result of her literary and scientific writings she has had to face numerous difficulties and even dangers in her life.  In 1972, she lost her job in the Egyptian Ministry of Health because of her book “Women and Sex” published in Arabic in Cairo (1969) and banned by the political and religious authorities, because in some chapters of the book she wrote against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and linked sexual problems to political and economic oppression.  The magazine Health, which she founded and had edited for more than three years, was closed down in 1973.  In September 1981 President Sadat put her in prison.  She was released at the end of November 1981, two months after his assassination.  She wrote her book “Memoirs” from the Women’s Prison on a roll of toilette paper and an eyebrow pencil smuggled to her cell by an imprisoned young woman in the prostitutes ward. From 1988 to 1993 her name figured on death lists issued by fanatical religious   political  organizations.

On 15 June, 1991, the government issued a decree which closed down the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association over which she presides and handed over its funds to the association called Women in Islam.  Six months before this decree the government closed down the magazine Noon, published by the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association.  She was editor-in-chief of the magazine.
During the summer of 2001, three of her books were banned at Cairo International Book Fair.  She was accused of apostasy in 2002 by a fundamentalist lawyer who raised a court case against her to be forcibly divorced from her husband, Dr. Sherif Hetata.  She won the case due to Egyptian  ,  Arab    and   international solidarity.  On 28 January, 2007, Nawal El Saadawi and her daughter Mona Helmy,  a poet and writer, were accused of apostasy and interrogated by the General Prosecutor in Cairo because of their writings   to   honor   the   name   of  the  mother  . 

They   won   the   case   in   2008  .   Their   efforts    led    to    a  new   law   of   the   child   in   Egypt  in  2008   ,   giving     children  born  outside  marriage  the  right   to   carry   the   name   of   the   mother  .   Also   FGM    is   banned   in   Egypt    by   this   law  in  2008   .    Nawal   El  Saadawi   was   writing   and   fighting   against   FGM    for   more   than    fifty  years  .    

Her   play “God  Resigns  At  the  Summit  Meeting”  was  banned  in  Egypt during  November  2006 and  she    faced    a new  trial in Cairo court raised against her by Al Azhar in February 2007, accusing her of apostasy and heresy because of her new play. She   won   the  case  on 13 May  2008    . 

Nawal El Saadawi had been awarded several national and international literary prizes, lectured in many universities, and participated in many international and national conferences.

On   May  3  ,  2009  ,  in   New  York     she    presented     the   Arthur  Miller   Lecture   at  the   Pen   International   Literary   Festival   . ,
Her works have been translated into more than thirty languages all over the world, and some of them are taught in a number of universities in different countries.

عن نوال السعداوى ومؤلفاتها الأدبية والفكرية

القاهرة / يناير 2006

(1) نبذة قصيرة

بدأت نوال السعداوى الكتابة فى سن مبكرة وهى فى المدرسة الثانوية ، عام 1944 ، وقدمت للمكتبة العربية أربعين كتابا ، ما بين الرواية ، والقصة القصيرة ، والمسرحية ، والسيرة الذاتية ، والدراسات العلمية والفكرية فى مجال الأدب والإبداع والسياسة والطب النفسى ، والأخلاق ، والدين ، وقضايا تحرير النساء والرجال فى المجتمع المصرى والعربى .

مارست نوال السعداوى الطب (فى مجال جراحة الصدر ثم المجال الباطنى والنفسى) وجمعت بين الطب والأدب ، وشاركت فى تأسيس عدد من المنظمات الأدبية والنسائية .

تُرجمت أعمالها الى ثلاثين لغة فى العالم ، وحصلت على جوائز أدبية متعددة ، وعلى الدكتوراه الفخرية من عدد من جامعات العالم .

(2) موجز لأهم أعمال نوال السعداوى

أ) الروايات :

ب) المذكرات والسيرة الذاتية :

جـ) مجموعات القصص القصيرة :

د) مسرحيات :

هـ) المؤلفات العلمية والفكرية :

Sherif Hetata

Sherif Youssef Hetata is a novelist and medical doctor. He is married to Nawal El Saadawi and has two children. He occupied various posts and functions since he graduated from the medical college with honors in 1946. These included a period of eight years with the International Labour Organization in Asia, then in Africa. During that period he was Head of a Team of Experts on Population and Migration.

He has written on many subjects including travel, politics and health, but since 1968 has devoted himself to novels. He has translated some of his own works as well as some of the works of Nawal El Saadawi into English. He was Assistant Editor of the magazine, Health, in the early 1970s and of the feminist magazine, Noon, in the early nineties.

He has travelled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, and has participated in many conferences and carried out lecture tours in various countries.
In Egypt he was a member of the Board of the Medical Syndicate and participated in founding the Association for Health Education in 1969, and the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in 1982. He speaks and writes Arabic, English and French fluently.
He worked for nine years in the Egyptian government service. First in the Ministry of Health planning and organizing primary health care services in rural areas, then in the planning department of the public sector drug industry, and lastly in the Supreme Council for Population and Family Planning. During the last period he attended several regional conferences on population and migration, spent three months at Chicago University in an exchange program, and participated in negotiations with the World Bank.

Half of his period with the ILO was spent in Asia and the other half in Africa.
In Asia he was based in New Delhi and was responsible for developing projects on population and migration with the concerned government authorities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He travelled extensively especially in India where he visited most of the states. He worked closely with high level government officials, parliamentarians, university professors, research institutes, political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organization. During this period he also travelled to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Many of these travels and experiences are reflected in his book, "The Way of Salt and Love." During this period ten projects related to population and migration were developed, and assisted by his office in the ILO. In Africa he was based in Addis Ababa and travelled extensively in Saharan Africa where he visited twelve countries in both the Eastern, Southern and Western parts of the continent.
He worked for several years at the head of a task force in the Egyptian Medical Syndicate on policies and plans related to primary health care and health insurance and his professional experience in this area was reflected in his book, "Health and Development." (Dar El Maaref Publishing House, 1968.)

There are many reviews of his works in the Arabic press and some in the English press but these are documented at home in Egypt.

He has attended several international writers' conferences in Helsinki, London, Johannesburg, and Copenhagen. He received the Gold Medal of the Faculty of Medicine in Physiology. He has lectured in many universities including Cambridge, Norwich, Sussex, London, Amsterdam, Harvard, North Carolina State University, Chicago University and others. He has given public lectures in many countries of the world and has taught for two semesters at Duke University, and one semester at the University of Washington in Seattle. The courses were on creativity, resistance literature and the Arab World and Women.

Dr. Saadawi and Dr. Hetata were also members of the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal, that investigated war crimes against Iraq. Text of the investigation could be found at:

WAR CRIMES: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal