93,821 profiles ranked

Nawal El Saadawi

Egyptian feminist writer (1931-2021) · Egypt · Writers · Died at 89

Nawal El Saadawi is read about 552 times a day, in 32 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to September 28, 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 373 days, one point a day.

Something wrong?
Compare

An Egyptian physician who turned a scalpel on patriarchy itself. Her books on women, Islam, and power cost her a prison cell under Sadat and decades of controversy - but made her one of the Arab world's most unignorable voices on sex, class, and what colonialism did to both.

A life in dates

2021Died21 March 20212015BBC 100 WomenAward2012Seán MacBride Peace PrizeAward2011Stig Dagerman PrizeAward2007honorary doctor of the Université libre de BruxellesAward2004North-South PrizeAward2003Catalonia International PrizeAward1997honorary doctor of the University of St AndrewsAward1982Franco-Arabic Friendship AwardAward1931Born27 October 1931

Also in Deutsch

Photos 4

On YouTube

136K subscribers
Open channel on YouTube

Awards

BBC 100 Women2015
Seán MacBride Peace Prize2012
Stig Dagerman Prize2011
Honorary doctor of the Université libre de Bruxelles2007
North-South Prize2004
Catalonia International Prize2003
Honorary doctor of the University of St Andrews1997
Franco-Arabic Friendship Award1982
Honorary doctor of the University of Tromso
Honorary doctor of the University of Chicago
Honorary doctorate of the University of York

In their orbit

Spouse: Sherif Hatata

In common with Nawal

Writers from Egypt 2

About this person

Nawal El Saadawi was born in Egypt in 1931 and trained as a physician and psychiatrist before her writing pulled her into collision with the state. Her books dissected the mechanics of women's lives under patriarchy in the Global South - sexuality, social class, the inheritance of colonial wounds - in prose that religious and political authorities found intolerable. She founded the Arab Women's Solidarity Association and co-founded the Arab Association for Human Rights, organizing where others only wrote. Universities on three continents gave her honorary degrees; the Council of Europe awarded her the North-South Prize in 2004, Belgium the Inana International Prize in 2005, and the International Peace Bureau the Seán MacBride Peace Prize in 2012. She died in March 2021, decades past the prison term and the bans, still arguing.

Country
Egypt
Category
Writers
Type
Writer / Author
Status
deceased
Dates
Lived 1931 to 2021 · aged 89

Fame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.