A young Egyptian woman clashes with her traditional family when she chooses a career in medicine. Rather than submit to an arranged marriage and motherhood, she cuts her hair short and works fiercely to realise her dreams. At medical school, she begins to understand the mysteries of the human body. After years of denying her own desires, the doctor begins a series of love affairs that allow her to explore her sexuality – on her own terms.
Written in her twenties when Nawal El Saadawi was studying in Cairo, Memoirs of a Woman Doctor is the searing coming-of-age story of a woman striving for freedom in a male-dominated world. This classic feminist novel remains as thought-provoking today as when it was first published.
