Heavier than Radwa

A teacher in disguise or a complex character with opposing traits and contradictions? After a few days, I will turn sixty-seven, and I have spent four decades of them teaching at the university... Some of those I studied have now become professors with students... No, dear reader. I am not showcasing my achievements before finishing the book, but I am trying to answer the question I posed at the beginning of the paragraph. You will not notice that I am sixty-seven, not because old age has not yet appeared on my features..., nor because if you knock on my door now, a relatively small woman wearing simple clothes will open for you..., her short, boyish hair, though her white hair mostly covers her black, almost makes her disappear... Not for these reasons alone, but because the woman, and I mean Radwa, as soon as she finds the street relatively empty, she starts kicking any small stone she encounters with her right foot, again and again, trying to send it as far as possible. She does like any ten-year-old grocer’s boy, who compensates for the boredom of endless deliveries to homes and his desire to play, which he cannot do because he works all day... She takes the game, is captivated by it, and does not stop until she notices a passerby staring at her in amazement. Radwa Ashour blends in these excerpts from her autobiography scenes from the revolution and her experience in facing illness over the past three years, linking them to earlier and previous years. She talks about the university, the liberation, and the martyrs. She talks about herself and reflects on the act of writing.