Nawal El Saadawi was born in a village outside Cairo, Egypt, in 1931. A trained medical doctor, she wrote landmark works on the oppression of Arab women including Woman at Point Zero (1973), God Dies by the Nile (1976) and The Hidden Face of Eve (1977). After being imprisoned by Anwar Sadat's government for criticising the regime, she founded the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in 1982, before being forced into exile in later life due to death threats by religious extremists. She returned to Egypt in 1996, running for president in 2005 until government persecution forced her to withdraw. Saadawi died in Egypt in 2021.

In this book we see how, from an early age, Saadawi combines her love of the Arabic language with her awareness of gender-based oppression to create texts which are as subversive as they are moving

• ForewordPreface - The Gift1. Allah and McDonalds2. The Cry in the Night3. God Above, Husband Below4. We Thank God for our Calamities5. Flying with the Butterflies6. Killing the Bridegroom7. Daughter of the Sea8. My Revolutionary Father9. The Lost Servant-Girl10. The Village of Forgotten Employees11. God Hid Behind the Coat-Stand12. The Ministry of Nauseation13. Dreaming of Pianos14. To the Circus15. The Singing Man16. The Whiskered Peasant17. Uncles, Suitors and other Bloodsuckers18. A Stove for my Mother19. Coming to Cairo20. The Long, Strong Bones of a Horse21. Love and the Hideous Cat22. Art Thieves23. Mad Aunts and Abandoned Babies24. The House of Desolation25. The Secret Communist26. Wasted Lives27. Cholera, Ageing and Death28. The Qur'an Betrayed29. British English and Holy Arabic30. The Name of Marx31. The Brush of HistoryAfterword - Living in Resistance