Egypt's economy, while showing encouraging signs of life, has not yet produced prosperity for a large number of its citizens. Some of the controversy over Sadat arises from the fact that the future that Sadat predicted has not yet come to pass.
There is not yet an authoritative biography of Sadat in either Arabic or English, although Sadat himself made several efforts during his career to define himself to the Egyptian public and the world community.(1) Praised as a prophet and cursed as a traitor, neither his death in 1981 nor the passage of time have resolved the ongoing debate about the man and his legacy. Anwar Sadat remains a controversial figure in the Middle East.