The Fall of the Imam

(Paperback)

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Description

Surrounded by a coterie of ministers, the Imam rules over an imaginary earthly kingdom. Bint Allah is the Daughter of God, a beautiful illegitimate girl. She is falsely accused by the Imam of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning. Then, during the annual Victory Holiday, the Imam himself is killed. The story of each of these deaths is told repeatedly, as this powerful and poetic novel reveals the underlying hypocrisy of any male-dominated religious state, and the insufferable predicament of women in a society that must ultimately self-destruct.

Reviews

'A poignant - and brave - writer' Marie Claire; 'More than any other woman, El Saadawi has come has come to embody the trials of Arab feminism' San Francisco Chronicle; 'The leading spokeswoman on the status of women in the Arab world' The Guardian; 'El-Saadawi writes beautifully and in abundant and evocative physical detail of an Egypt that remains closely tied to the land and to a way of life that in many respects has not changed for centuries.' Publishers Weekly; 'El-Saadawi is a straight shooter and one of the most controversial writers of the latter half of this century.' Library Journal

Author Bio

Nawal El Saadawi is an internationally renowned Egyptian writer and feminist. She holds honorary doctorates from the universities of York, Illinois at Chicago, St Andrews and Tromso. Her many prizes and awards include the Great Minds of the Twentieth Century Prize, awarded by the American Biographical Institute in 2003, the North-South Prize from the Council of Europe and the Premi Internacional Catalunya in 2004. Several of her novels have been translated into English, including Two Women in One, Memoirs of a Woman Doctor and Love in the Kingdom of Oil.