SOURCE: Lo Iacono, Ilona. “Ilona Lo Iacono on a Portrait of the Writer as a Young Woman.” Arena Magazine 63 (February/March 2003): 54-5.

In the following review, Lo Iacono provides an overview of Walking through Fire and highlights El Saadawi's religious and gender-specific political views.

This second volume of Egyptian feminist and writer Nawal El Saadawi's autobiography begins in North Carolina in 1993 and moves backwards in time and place, examining the events which led her to leave her home country in fear of her life in 1992. Known for her novels, short stories and writings on women, El Saadawi has a reputation as a passionate activist whose writing seeks to subvert power structures. Accordingly, Walking through Fire is no self-indulgent reflection on the events of her own life; the autobiographical details serve as a framework for the discussion of ideas already prominent in her other works.

The book charts the...