The AWSA was banned in 1991 after criticizing US involvement in the Gulf War, which El Saadawi felt should have been solved among Arabs. Although denied pen and paper, El Saadawi continued to write in prison, using an eyebrow pencil and toilet paper. A year after her release in 1982, she published Memoirs from the Women's Prison, an attack on the Egyptian government. In the afterword, she scorns her country's government as corrupt, and vows to continue to write the truth. Danger has been a part of my life ever since I picked up a pen and wrote.
Nothing is more perilous than truth in a world that lies.
Nothing is more perilous than knowledge in a world that has considered knowledge a sin since Adam and Eve. Even after her release, El Saadawi's life was still threatened - mainly by Islamic fundamentalists. Armed guards were stationed outside her house in Giza for several years until she left the country to be a visiting professor in the United States. She was the writer in residence at Duke University's Asian and African Languages Department from 1993-1996. She also taught at Washington State University in Seattle.