Two Women in One

About the Book

Bahiah Shaheen is an eighteen-year-old medical student and daughter of a prominent Egyptian public official. She is also an artist – a secret she carefully keeps to herself.

Bahiah finds the male students in her class rough, coarse and alien. Her father, too, seems to belong to a race apart, and Bahiah cannot be her real self in his company. Then, following a surprise conversation with a stranger at an art exhibition, Bahiah begins her journey to self-discovery, abandoning the life constructed for her.

Two Women in One tells the powerful story of a modern Middle Eastern woman’s quest for emancipation and dignity.

About the Author

Nawal El Saadawi (1931–2021) was an internationally renowned feminist writer and activist from Egypt. She founded and became president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association and co-founded the Arab Association for Human Rights. Among her numerous roles in public office she served as Egypt’s National Director of Public Health and stood as a candidate in the 2004 Egyptian presidential elections. El Saadawi held honorary doctorates from the universities of York, Illinois at Chicago, St Andrews and Tromso, and her numerous awards include the Council of Europe North-South Prize, the Women of the Year Award (UK), Sean MacBride Peace Prize (Ireland), and the National Order of Merit (France). She wrote over fifty novels, short stories and non-fiction works which centre on the status of Arab women, which have been translated into more than thirty languages.

Reviews

‘These two women live, to some degree, in every thinking woman.’
New York Times Book Review