Praise for the first edition:

"An impressive collection of more than 50 pieces—essays, poems, folktales, short stories, memoirs, film scripts, lectures/speeches—by Arab women challenging the widely accepted view of Middle Eastern women as submissive non-thinkers to whom feminism is a foreign concept." —Booklist

"Anyone interested in good writing should read [Opening the Gates]. Here are first-class stories with the energy and freshness we expect from a beginning." —Doris Lessing, The Independent

"This collection of stories, speeches, essays, poems and memoirs bears fierce testimony to a tradition of brave Arab feminist writing in the face of subjugation by a Muslim patriarchy."—Publishers Weekly

"This impressive collection of writings by Arab women . . . represent[s] a powerful series of vignettes by women who were both insightful and gifted, into the lives of women who have lived 'behind the veil' over the last 100 years."—Arab Book World

"An expression of indigenous, intrepid feminism in the Arab world."—Ms.

"Opening the Gates succeeds not because of its methodology, but because of the stories the women tell."—Voice Literary Supplement