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Africans are adopting podcasting as a way of telling their own stories. In one class in Egypt, this took a feminist turn.
K. Sello Duiker.
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His major work The Quiet Violence of Dreams is about a young man undergoing a mental breakdown, something that the novelist also experienced.
Nawal El Saadawi in 2015.
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Her 1975 novel demonstrated a far more radical feminism than was common in Africa and the Arab world – a precursor of the #MenAreTrash anger of today.
Nawal El Saadawi protesting at Tahrir Square, Egypt, 2011.
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She believed that writing is an act of speaking the truth, an act of courage, that must serve the people and not those in power.
El Saadawi protesting on her 80th birthday.
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To understand her contribution to public debate, it’s important to see her in the context of the historical moment that made her work possible, necessary and provocative.
Nawal El Saadawi at home in 2015.
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A firebrand activist for women’s rights, her novels espoused truths that made her hugely unpopular with the government.