Reading the World discussion

Zed Books is reissuing Nawal El Saadawi’s classic feminist work. It was first published in Arabic in 1975 and in English in 1983, translated by Sherif Hetata. Forty years on it feels just as fresh, powerful and necessary as on the first day it appeared. Firdaus is on death row for murder. Proud and unbroken, in spite of a life of unremitting pain and repeated betrayals, she narrates her story to a female psychiatrist on the eve of her hanging. The text has a highly visual quality, it’s an expressionist film in words: disembodied eyes loom over Firdaus at key moments in her life, representing intense emotion – fear, love. Genitally mutilated as a child, Firdaus feels sexual desire as a distant memory, something once glimpsed, now only vaguely remembered. The searing narrative is rendered epic by the use of long repeated passages that make explicit the connections between the stages in Firdaus’s journey towards murder. As a first-person account, the book initially seems narrow in focus, but it builds to an all-encompassing and blood-curdling indictment of patriarchal society.

I read this book in 2018, seems like it was just last year. Time flies...

4/5 stars

“This novel, or rather creative non-fiction, takes the reader into the cell of a woman the night before her execution.”

“She is an orphan who was passed from one abusive guardian to another, and her tale shows how trust is tested and finally erodes, leaving behind only fear and alienation.”

I was blown away after reading the introductory comments of the book, about the author section, the foreword by Miriam Cooke and the preface, I was not disappointed in my journey. The author, a psychiatrist, turned to writing after having her rights taken away under the rule of Anwar Sadat. Woman at Point Zero was first published in Beirut in 1973.

The story is about Firdaus, a woman who was doomed the moment she was born. In this patriarchal society of Cairo, she was passed from one relative to another not being sure who her parents really were. A glimmer of hope ensues when she is allowed to go to school but you know this does not maintain as the book starts in prison. “Life is a snake. They are the same, Firdaus. If the snake realizes you are not a snake, it will bite you.”

The main themes of the book are feminism, bravery and survival. “Because I was intelligent I preferred to be a free prostitute, rather than an enslaved wife.” I would be happy to read more of this author's work.

I just purchased the Audiobook. I have heard excellent things about this one --- including from you Diane.

Really amazing and powerful. A very poetic work and brave. El Saadawi masterfully makes this book both feminist and universal. In her exposing the self-delusions of patriarchical Egyptian society she exposes all the hypocrisies and oppressions that all societies inflict on all humans, I think. Though Firdaus’ journey is more cruel than most, anyone seeking their true self in this world is going to face emotional and physical obstacles that parallel hers in some way. Then she finds an irreducible truth that sets her free. She is at once an everywoman and an ideal. Very inspring.

I finished and agree with both of you. Although Egypt was the location, I felt the story transcended the location. It felt like every woman's story. It was perhaps - hopefully a harder journey than most have, it still felt like the obstacles are harder but the fears, struggles, emotions, are the same that I have faced. This was very feminist story.

I read this book last year and it has stayed with me, as it is that powerful a story and it is told in clear and yet lyrical language.
I am glad others have found it equally good.