Heavier than Radwa

Author's name: Radwa Ashour Publisher: Al-Shorouk for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2013 Literary classification: Biographies and memoirs Brief about the book: A teacher in disguise or a complex personality in which contradictions and opposites meet? After a few days, I will turn sixty-seven, I have spent four decades of them teaching at the university, some of those I taught have become professors with students. No, dear reader, I do not present my achievements before finishing the book, but I try 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 does not yet appear on my features, nor because if you knock on my door now, a relatively small woman dressed simply will open for you, her short, boyish hair, although mostly white, almost makes her disappear. Not only for these reasons, but because the woman, and I mean Radwa, as soon as she finds the street relatively empty, she begins kicking any small stone she encounters with her right foot, again and again, trying to send it as far as possible. She does this like any ten-year-old shopkeeper boy, compensating for the boredom of endless deliveries to homes, and for the desire to play which is unavailable because he works all day. The game takes her, fascinates her, and she does not stop until she notices a passerby staring at her in amazement. Radwa Ashour mixes in these passages from her autobiography scenes from the revolution and her experience in facing illness over the past three years, connecting them with previous and earlier years. She talks about the university, the Tahrir Square, the martyrs, about herself, and reflects on the act of writing.