Walking Through Fire (Paperback: 352 pages)

"Walking Through Fire" is the second volume of Nawal El Saadawi's autobiography, the story of her extraordinary adult life. We read of her work as a rural doctor, her attempts to set up women's organizations and to publish magazines and exile after her name appeared on a death list. She talks candidly of her personal struggles and her relationships -- of love, companionship, shared struggle and the differences between them.

Nawal El Saadawi has carved a place for herself in the universal struggle against oppression. "Words should not seek to please, to hide the wounds in our bodies, or the shameful moments in our lives," she says. "They may hurt, give us pain, but they can also provoke us to question what we have accepted for thousands of years."