We live in one world under patriarchal capitalism. I am opposed to anything that divides us. The differences between people and cultures that literature erases, theory generalizes and abstracts.This is how Egyptian writer Nawal El Saadawi articulated her personal philosophy and life choices during a September 2014 meeting with Chinese women writers at Beijing Normal University. Whereas theory specializes and distances the object of study, El Saadawi argued, the imaginary brings the object close in order to deal with the particular individual in her daily struggles, joys, and challenges. “I write what I lived in my village Kafr Tahla,” El Saadawi elaborated. “When with a sincere intent a writer dives deep into their reality the story will become universal.” Theory loses the particularity that is at the heart of the universal. Diving deep into her reality means returning again and again to her birthplace by the Nile, even while traveling the globe. Read the full article (PDF): Nawal el Saadawi: Writer and Revolutionary
