SAQI BOOKS

Memoirs of a Woman Doctor

by Nawal El-Saadawi

Rebelling against the constraints of family and society, a young Egyptian woman decides to study medicine, becoming the only woman in a class of men. Her encounters with the other students - as well as with male and female corpses in the autopsy room - intensify her search for identity. She realises that men are not gods, as her mother had taught her, that science cannot explain everything, and that she cannot be satisfied by living a life purely of the mind. After a brief and unhappy marriage, she throws herself into her work, becoming a successful and wealthy doctor. But at the same time, she becomes more aware of the injustice and hypocrisy in society. She comes to find fulfilment, not in isolation, but through her relationship with others.

AUTHOR BIO:
Nawal El-Saadawi is an internationally-renowned Egyptian writer and feminist. After studying psychiatry in Cairo, she practised medicine both in Egyptian cities and in the countryside. She became director of health education in Egypt, but her writing made her increasingly the focus of controversy. Her book Woman and Sex, published in 1972, dealt openly with subjects considered taboo. Several of her novels have been translated into English. Two Women in One, Memoirs of a Woman Doctor and Love in the Kingdom of Oil are also published by Saqi Books.