Nawal El Saadawi, writer and freedom fighter, has been pilloried, censored, imprisoned and exiled for her refusal to accept the oppressions imposed on women by gender and class. In her life and in her writings, this struggle against sexual discrimination has always been linked to a struggle against all forms of oppression. Her novels include Women at Point Zero , God Dies By the Nile , The Circling Song and Searching . This autobiography paints a portrait of her childhood and shows how she moulded her creative powers into a weapon.