Nawal El Saadawi (Arabic: نوال السعداوي) was born in 1931, in a small village outside Cairo. Unusually, she and her brothers and sisters were educated together, and she graduated from the University of Cairo Medical School in 1955, specializing in psychiatry. For two years, she practiced as a medical doctor, both at the university and in her native Tahla.
From 1963 until 1972, Saadawi worked as Director General for Public Health Education for the Egyptian government. During this time, she also studied at Columbia University in New York, where she received her Master of Public Health degree in 1966. Her first novel Memoirs of a Woman Doctor was published in Cairo in 1958. In 1972, however, she lost her job in the Egyptian government as a result of political pressure. The magazine, Health, which she had founded and 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 famous 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 The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World.
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 his assassination. In 1982, she established the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, which was outlawed in 1991. When, in 1988, her name appeared on a fundamentalist death list, she and her second husband, Sherif Hetata, fled to the USA, where she taught at Duke University and Washington State University. She 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 has achieved widespread international recognition for her work. She holds honorary doctorates from the universities of York, Illinois at Chicago, St Andrews and Tromso. Her many prizes and awards include the Great Minds of the Twentieth Century Prize, awarded by the American Biographical Institute in 2003, the North-South Prize from the Council of Europe and the Premi Internacional Catalunya in 2004. Her books have been translated into over 28 languages worldwide. They are taught in universities across the world.
She now works as a writer, psychiatrist and activist. Her most recent novel, entitled Al Riwaya was published in Cairo in 2004.
كانت هذه المسرحية اول كتاب قراتها كلها بالعربية، وعشان هيك سيكون في قلبي مكان لها خاص دايما. لكن أعتقد أنّها شوي غريبة ومش كاملة. في نهاية المسرحية، داخلت القصة شخصية جديدة وهي ممكن أهم جزء في حل مشاكل المسرحية. أنا استمتعت بالحوار النهائي بينها وبين الطبيب السيئ، لكن هذا الحوار ما تابع بشكل طبيعي من باقية المسرحية.
في نهاية الأمر، أنا أستمتعت بها، لكن أنا متحمس أن أقرأ روايتها وخاصة قراءتها بالفصحى ولا عامية مصرية
د فهيم مازل موجود ويعمل في المصنع ولا يعبئ بالعمال الذين يموتون الى الان ، وكم منا شرف الدين الذي يصدق دكتور فيهم كانه منزل بوحي من السماء ويوافقه اذا قال زرقا او لم تكن ... فعلا روايه رائعه لكن في بعض المأخذ على الدكتوره نادره كان يمكنها ان تنجح بدون ترك بيت اهلها تحت شعار حريه المرأه والتحرر
تنقل لنا نوال السعداوي في هذه المسرحية قضية السيطرة القصوى للسلطة على العامة او الطبقة العاملة / البروليتارية ، تصور هذه القضية على شكل حوار مسرحي يتضمن مجموعة من الاشخاص ابرزهم الوالي الذي يمارس سلطته على العمال العاملين في مصنع مهترىء والذين اصابوا بمرض الزرقا وهو اتي من ميكروب تجلبه ارانب من استراليا.
عند اكتشاف الاطباء العاملين في المعمل هذا المرض يخبر الدكتور فهمي الوالي بما يجري لكنه يسكته او بالاحرى يختار مصلحته الشخصية على مصلحة العمال الذين يموتون واحدا تلو الاخر.
بعد توالي الاحداث يموت الدكتور شرف الدين اثر انتقال العدوى و يسجن الحاج مرتجي لانه يقول الحقيقة عن وجود مرض الزرقا في المعمل لتنتهي المسرحية بندم الدكتور فهمي على فعله وعلى عدم اختيار الطريق الصائب وطريق الحق وندمه ندما شديدا ليطلب السماح من الدكتورة نادرة.
مسرحية تحاكي الواقع وهذا أول كتاب أقرأه ل نوال على الرغم من تحفظي على أفكارها ولكن اسلوبها جيد وسهل.. وأتمنى ان يقع هذا الكتاب بين يدي بعض الرؤساء والمسؤولين في الوطن العربي لأنه يعري واقعهم المخزي...