Memory is never complete. There are always parts of it that time has amputated. Writing is a way of retrieving them, of bringing the missing parts back to it, of making it more holistic.

Solidarity between women can be a powerful force of change, and can influence future development in ways favourable not only to women but also to men.

Home to me is the world because my books have been translated into more than 30 languages.

We here in Egypt are fed up with U.S. colonialism.

I am becoming more radical with age. I have noticed that writers, when they are old, become milder. But for me it is the opposite. Age makes me more angry.

Words should not seek to please, to hide the wounds in our bodies, or the shameful moments in our lives. They may hurt, give us pain, but they can also provoke us to question what we have accepted for thousands of years.

Language, journalism, food, sex. All is politics. Even innocent love stories are politics. ... There is no such thing as neutrality.