Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
Shereen El Feki
Shortlisted for the Guardian first book award and longlisted for the Orwell Prize
'Important, brave and necessary' Naomi Wolf
If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms.
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 gives us unique and timely insight into everyday lives in a part of the world that is changing in front of our very eyes.
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About Shereen El Feki
Reviews for Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World
Naomi Wolf
Remarkable... Sex and the Citadel should be celebrated - not least for freeing voices silenced by a mixture of taboo and political repression. It provides crucial oxygen for discussions that will need more airing in the long, conflicted years ahead
Rachel Halliburton
Independent on Sunday
Compelling, revelatory... No one can be sure where the Arab awakening will lead now
towards fiercer sexual controls or a slight relaxing of them. The one thing El Feki is sure of is that there will be no seismic shifts. This will be evolution, not revolution
Jenni Russell
Sunday Times (Culture)
Fascinating
Daisy Goodwin
Mail on Sunday
Frequently eye-popping… The stories emphasise just how bewildering the issue of sex has become across the Middle East
Nicholas Blincoe
Daily Telegraph
A bold, meticulously researched mini Kinsey Report, rich in anecdote and statistics
Caroline Moorhead
Spectator
A fascinating survey of sex that is rich in detail
The Economist
Highly researched and refreshingly amusing... an honest appraisal of a culture and religion in turmoil
Malu Halasa
Times Literary Supplement
In talking to ordinary people as well as sex therapists and sociologists, El Feki has been able to produce an original portrait of the region’s youth that sheds light on the condition of women, failing education and health systems, and the uses and abuses of religion to reinforce the status quo
Rhoula Khalaf
Financial Times
Serious and ground-breaking study of what goes on in bedrooms away from the public turmoil taking place in Egypt. It also reappraises the sexual history of the Arab world
GQ