Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World - Softcover

El Feki, Shereen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0701183160 ISBN 13: 9780701183165

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2013

Synopsis

'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.

About this title

Review:

"Important, brave and necessary" (Naomi Wolf)

"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 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)

"Dr El Feki's position as a western-educated female Muslim, both insider and outsider... gives the book an invaluable perspective and a differnet kind of authority" (Faramerz Dabhoiwala Observer)

"This is a principled book, robustly educative and illuminating without consenting to the kind of vacant voyeurism that the intimate life veiled by Islam can provoke in unthinking outsiders" (Shahidha Bari Times Higher Education Supplement)

Book Description:

A fascinating, groundbreaking look at sexual attitudes and behaviours in the Arab world, against the backdrop of this decade's popular uprisings

About this edition

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0701183160
• ISBN 13: 9780701183165
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368