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CAIRO: Famed Egyptian author Nawal El-Saadawi, a champion of women’s rights who revolutionized discussions on gender in the Arab world died on Sunday at the age of 89.
According to a report by the Al-Ahram newspaper, Saadawi died in a Cairo hospital after suffering a long illness. Aysha A. Taryam, Editor in Chief of Gulf Today wrote on her Twitter account, “We lost a warrior who spoke for freedom, gender equality before the law, and against female genital mutilation. You will remain savage and dangerous as will the truth you spoke #RestInPower #NawalElSaadawi…”
We lost a warrior who spoke for freedom, gender equality before the law, and against female genital mutilation. You will remain savage and dangerous as will the truth you spoke #RestInPower #NawalElSaadawi Portrait by Maral Bolouri pic.twitter.com/cLOme1vOrB
— Aysha A. Taryam (@ayshataryam) March 21, 2021
A prolific author who shot to fame with the widely translated novel Women at Point Zero (1975), Saadawi was a fierce advocate for women’s empowerment in Egypt’s deeply conservative and patriarchal society.
With over 55 books to her name, Saadawi’s outspoken brand of feminism — including campaigning against women wearing the veil, inequality in Muslim inheritance rights between men and women, polygamy, and female genital mutilation (FGM) — gained her as many critics as admirers in the Middle East.
Nawal El Saadawi wrote more than 60, translated into more than 40 languages around the world, its time to launch a institute for thought and creativity carrying the name of Nawal El Saadawi, help us achieve our goalhttps://t.co/0diFE2dokl
— نوال السعداوي (@NawalElSaadawi1) February 21, 2021
In 1993, after constant death threats from firebrand extremist preachers, Saadawi moved to Duke University in the US state of North Carolina, where she was a writer-in-residence at the Asian and African languages department for three years.
She returned to Egypt and, in 2005, ran for president but abandoned her bid after accusing security forces of not allowing her to hold rallies.
Nawal el-Saadawi fell out of favor with many secular progressives later in life for her wholehearted embrace of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s military overthrow of radical president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Her path-breaking, critical books published in dozens of languages also took aim at Western feminists, including her friend Gloria Steinem and policies espoused by heads of state such as former US president George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.
