What People Are Saying
“Some books are important. Some books you can’t put down. Out from the Shadow of Men is both. Laila El-Sissi has given us a ground-breaking memoir of two young sisters growing up in Egypt whose courage, devotion to each other, and struggle for their own autonomous lives will make you fall in love with them and remember their story forever.”
–Ellen Bass, author of The Courage to Heal
Meet the Author
Laila El-Sissi was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to an upper class family. She is one of six children. Her father was an architect who chose to educate his older daughters at a prestigious French convent school, although he was an observant Muslim.
As a teenager, El-Sissi hoped to pursue a career in journalism. However, she and her older sister, Rawiya, were promised to older men in arranged marriages at a young age. Through perseverance and fortitude, they eventually divorced their husbands and escaped the abusers within their family, fleeing the country of their birth.