Nawal El Saadawi's lifelong fight against patriarchy, fundamentalism, and neocolonialism

Nawal El Saadawi, an Egyptian writer and physician known for her feminist activism, passed away on 21 March 2021 at the age of eighty-nine, following a lifetime dedicated to highlighting systemic injustices. She was born in 1931 in Kafr Tahla and underwent female genital mutilation at the age of six, an experience she later recounted in her 1977 book, The Hidden Face of Eve. Her 1969 non-fiction title, Women and Sex, faced a ban in Egypt, resulting in her dismissal from the Director-General of Public Health role. Critiquing patriarchy and religious extremism, her work drew ire from figures such as Anwar Sadat. After being imprisoned in 1981, she shared her experiences in Memoirs from the Women's Prison (1983). El Saadawi also engaged in the 2011 Arab Spring protests and was married to Sherif Hatata for forty years.