Book description
'Important, brave and necessary' Naomi Wolf
As political change sweeps the streets and squares, parliaments and
presidential palaces of the Arab world, Shereen El Feki has been
looking at upheaval a little closer to home - in the sexual lives of
men and women in Egypt and across the region. The result is an
informative, insightful and engaging account of a highly sensitive,
and still largely secret, aspect of Arab society.
Sex is entwined in religion and tradition, politics and economics,
gender and generations, so it makes the perfect lens for examining the
region's complex social landscape. From pregnant virgins to desperate
housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, Sex
and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the
Arab region, and brings new voices to the debate over its future.
This is no peep show or academic treatise. Sex and the
Citadel is a highly personal, often humorous, account of one
woman's journey to better understand Arab society at its most
intimate, and in the process, better understand her own origins. Rich
with five years of groundbreaking research from Egypt to Saudi Arabia,
Tunisia to Qatar, Sex and the Citadel gives us unique and
timely insight into everyday lives in a part of the world that is
changing in front of our very eyes.
Shereen El Feki
is a writer, broadcaster, and academic who started her professional
life in medical science before going on to become an award-winning
journalist with
The Economist
and a presenter with
Al Jazeera English
. She is former vice-chair of the UN's Global Commission on HIV and the
Law, as well as a TED Global Fellow. Shereen writes for a number of
publications, among them the
Huffington Post
. With roots in Egypt and Wales, Shereen grew up in Canada; she now
divides her time between London and Cairo.
