Biographical Information

Nawal El Saadawi

Sherif Hetata

Nawal El Saadawi

Nawal El Saadawi is a novelist, a psychiatrist and a writer who is well known both in the Arab countries and in many other parts of the world. Her novels and her books on the situation of women in Egyptian and Arab society have had a deep effect on successive generations of young women over the last three decades.

As a result of her literary and scientific writings she has had to face numerous difficulties and even dangers in her life. In 1972 she lost her job in the Egyptian government. The magazine, Health, which she had founded and editted for more than three years was closed down. In 1981 President Sadat put her in prison. She was released one month after his assassination.

Today her name figures on the one of the death lists issued by some fanatical terrorist organizations. This list was also publicized in a neighboring Arab country and in cassettes which are widely distributed all over the country.

On June 15, 1991, the government issued a decree which closed down the Arab Women's Solidarity Association over which she presides and hand over its funds to the Association called Women in Islam. Six months before this decree the government closed down the magazine, Noon, published by the Association. She was Editor in Chief of this Magazine.

Nawal El Saadawi has been awarded several national and international literary prizes, and has lectured in many universities and participated in many international and national conferences. Her works have been translated into over 30 languages all over the world, and some of them are taught in a number of university colleges in different countries.

These universities include in Egypt: The American University in Cairo; Cairo University; Ain Sham University in Cairo. In the United States; Duke University; The University of Washington in Seattle; Harvard University; Yale University; New York University; Columbia University; The University of California at Berkeley; The University of Illinois; Georgetown University; The University of Virginia; UCLA; Indiana University and others. She has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, at the Sorbonne in Paris, at Bern University in Switzerland, and widely throughout the rest of Europe.

Chronology:

• Visiting Professor, Duke University Center for International Studies and Program in Asian and African Languages and Literature, 1993-1994
• Head of Women's Program in the UN-ECWA Beirut, Lebanon, 1978-1980
• Consultant on Women's Programs in the UN, ECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1978-1979
• Author in the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo, Egypt, 1974-1978
• Acting Director General and Director General, Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Egypt, 1966-1972
• Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health, 1955-1965

Other Professional Activities:

• Founder and President, Arab Women Solidarity Association, 1982-Present, and Founder, Noon Magazine, magazine of the Association, 1989-1991.
• Co-founder, Arab Association for Human Rights, 1983-1987
• Founder and Vice-President, African Association for Women on Research and Development, Dakkar, Senegal, 1977-1987
• President and Organizer, International Conference on the Challenges Facing Arab Women, Cairo, September 1986
• Founder, Health Education Association and Chief Editor, Health Magazine, Cairo, Egypt, 1968-1974
• Founder, Egyptian Women Writer's Association, 1971
• Secretary-General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, 1968-1972

Awards:

• Honorary Doctorate, University of York, United Kingdom, 1994
• First Degree Decoration of the Republic of Libya, 1989
• Literary Award of Gubran, 1988
• Arab Association of Australia Award, 1988
• Literary Award by the Franco-Arab Friendship Association, Paris, France, 1982
• Literary Award by the Supreme Council for Arts amd Social Sciences, Cairo, Egypt, 1974
  

Sherif Hetata

Sherif Youssef Hetata is a novelist and medical doctor. He is married to Nawal El Saadawi and has two children. He occupied various posts and functions since he graduated from the medical college with honors in 1946. These included a period of eight years with the International Labour Organization in Asia, then in Africa. During that period he was Head of a Team of Experts on Population and Migration.

He has written on many subjects including travel, politics and health, but since 1968 has devoted himself to novels. He has translated some of his own works as well as some of the works of Nawal El Saadawi into English. He was Assistant Editor of the magazine, Health, in the early 1970s and of the feminist magazine, Noon, in the early nineties.

He has travelled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, and has participated in many conferences and carried out lecture tours in various countries.
In Egypt he was a member of the Board of the Medical Syndicate and participated in founding the Association for Health Education in 1969, and the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in 1982. He speaks and writes Arabic, English and French fluently.
He worked for nine years in the Egyptian government service. First in the Ministry of Health planning and organizing primary health care services in rural areas, then in the planning department of the public sector drug industry, and lastly in the Supreme Council for Population and Family Planning. During the last period he attended several regional conferences on population and migration, spent three months at Chicago University in an exchange program, and participated in negotiations with the World Bank.

Half of his period with the ILO was spent in Asia and the other half in Africa.
In Asia he was based in New Delhi and was responsible for developing projects on population and migration with the concerned government authorities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He travelled extensively especially in India where he visited most of the states. He worked closely with high level government officials, parliamentarians, university professors, research institutes, political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organization. During this period he also travelled to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Many of these travels and experiences are reflected in his book, "The Way of Salt and Love." During this period ten projects related to population and migration were developed, and assisted by his office in the ILO. In Africa he was based in Addis Ababa and travelled extensively in Saharan Africa where he visited twelve countries in both the Eastern, Southern and Western parts of the continent.
He worked for several years at the head of a task force in the Egyptian Medical Syndicate on policies and plans related to primary health care and health insurance and his professional experience in this area was reflected in his book, "Health and Development." (Dar El Maaref Publishing House, 1968.)

There are many reviews of his works in the Arabic press and some in the English press but these are documented at home in Egypt.

He has attended several international writers' conferences in Helsinki, London, Johannesburg, and Copenhagen. He received the Gold Medal of the Faculty of Medicine in Physiology. He has lectured in many universities including Cambridge, Norwich, Sussex, London, Amsterdam, Harvard, North Carolina State University, Chicago University and others. He has given public lectures in many countries of the world and has taught for two semesters at Duke University, and one semester at the University of Washington in Seattle. The courses were on creativity, resistance literature and the Arab World and Women.

Dr. Saadawi and Dr. Hetata were also members of the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal, that investigated war crimes against Iraq. Text of the investigation could be found at:

WAR CRIMES: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal