The Fall of the Imam

By Nawal El Saadawi

Categories: Literature & Fiction

The Fall of the Imam is a 1987 novel by the Egyptian writer, physician and feminist Nawal El Saadawi, translated from Arabic by Sherif Hetata and published in English by Methuen and later by Saqi Books. In a nameless Islamic state, a young woman named Bint Allah, an orphan born outside marriage, is hunted and killed by the Imam's men. Told in shifting, fragmented voices, the novel is a fierce allegory of political and religious tyranny and the oppression of women, exposing hypocrisy at every level of power.

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• Margaret Atwood: “Listed among her favourite books in The Pleasure of Reading (1992), reprinted by The Telegraph.”