This powerful account of the oppression of women in the Muslim world remains as shocking today as when it was first published, more than a quarter of a century ago. Nawal El Saadawi writes out of a powerful sense of the violence and injustice which permeated her society. Her experiences working as a doctor in villages around Egypt, witnessing prostitution, honour killings and sexual abuse, including female circumcision, drove her to give voice to this suffering. She goes on explore the causes of the situation through a discussion of the historical role of Arab women in religion and literature. Saadawi argues that the veil, polygamy and legal inequality are incompatible with the essence of Islam or any human faith. This edition, complete with a new foreword, lays claim to The Hidden Face of Eve's status as a classic of modern Arab writing.

So begins Firdaus' story, leading to her grimy Cairo prison cell, where she welcomes her death sentence as a relief from her pain and suffering. Born to a peasant family in the Egyptian countryside, Firdaus suffers a childhood of cruelty and neglect. Her passion for education is ignored by her family, and on leaving school she is forced to marry a much older man. Following her escapes from violent relationships, she finally meets Sharifa who tells her that 'A man does not know a woman's value ... the higher you price yourself the more he will realise what you are really worth' and leads her into a life of prostitution. Desperate and alone, she takes drastic action. -- Publisher description.

Groundbreaking essays by female activists and scholars documenting women’s resistance before, during, and after the Arab Spring Images of women protesting in the Arab Spring, from Tahrir Square to the streets of Tunisia and Syria, have become emblematic of the political upheaval sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. In Women Rising, Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad bring together a provocative group of scholars, activists, artists, and more, highlighting the first-hand experiences of these remarkable women. In this relevant and timely volume, Stephan and Charrad paint a picture of women’s political resistance in sixteen countries before, during, and since the Arab Spring protests first began in 2011. Contributors provide insight into a diverse range of perspectives across the entire movement, focusing on often-marginalized voices, including rural women, housewives, students, and artists. Women Rising offers an on-the-ground understanding of an important twenty-first century movement, telling the story of Arab women’s activism.

To Julie Metz, her mother, Eve, was the quintessential New Yorker. It was difficult to imagine her living anywhere else except the Upper West Side of Manhattan. In truth, Eve had endured a harrowing childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna, though she rarely spoke about it. Yet after her passing, Julie discovered a keepsake box filled with farewell notes from friends and relatives addressed to a ten-year-old girl named Eva, her mother. This was the first clue to the secret pain that Julie's mother had carried as an immigrant, and it shed light on a family that had to rely on its own perseverance to escape the xenophobia that threatened their survival. A beautiful blend of personal memoir and family history, Metz shows how one woman's search for her mother's lost childhood offers valuable lessons about the sacrifices people make to save their families during some of the darkest times in history.

A Commonwealth Prize–winning novel of “intense power . . . examining the role of women in modern African society” by the acclaimed Ghanaian author (Publishers Weekly). Living in Ghana’s capital city of Accra with a postgraduate degree and a career in data analysis, Esi Sekyi is a thoroughly modern African woman. Perhaps that is why she decides to divorce her husband after enduring yet another morning’s marital rape. Though her friends and family are baffled by her decision (after all, he doesn’t beat her!), Esi holds fast. When she falls in love with a married man—wealthy, and able to arrange a polygamous marriage—the modern woman finds herself trapped in a new set of problems. Witty and compelling, Aidoo’s novel, according to Manthia Diawara, “inaugurates a new realist style in African literature.” In an afterword to this edition, Tuzyline Jita Allan “places Aidoo’s work in a historical context and helps introduce this remarkable writer [who] sheds light on women’s problems around the globe” (Publishers Weekly).

Nawal El Saadawi has been pilloried, censored, imprisoned and exiled for her refusal to accept the oppressions imposed on women by gender and class. In her life and in her writings, this struggle against sexual discrimination has always been linked to a struggle against all forms of oppression: religious, racial, colonial and neo-colonial. In 1969, she published her first work of non-fiction, Women and Sex ; in 1972, her writings and her struggles led to her dismissal from her job. From then on there was no respite; imprisonment under Sadat in 1981 was the culmination of the long war she had fought for Egyptian women's social and intellectual freedom. A Daughter of Isis is the autobiography of this extraordinary woman.