I've lived in Egypt among Christians and Muslims, and we never had a conflict. Now you have a conflict between Christians and Muslims and Baha'is and Sunni and Shia.

I never stopped writing. I started writing when I was twelve years of age. And I was writing all the time. But nothing was translated until thirty years after I started writing, when The Hidden Face of Eve was translated in 1980.

Interviewer: What would you say to a woman in this country who assumes she is no longer oppressed, who believes women's liberation has been achieved? el Saadawi: Well I would think she is blind. Like many people who are blind to gender problems, to class problems, to international problems. She's blind to what's happening to her.

Man ... put himself in a tight corner when he decided that woman was innately passive.

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

Everybody has to die, Firdaus. I will die, and you will die. The important thing is how to live until you die.

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.