Woman at Point Zero Paperback | Pages: 112 pages

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Original Title:	امرأة عند نقطة الصفر‎
ISBN:	0862321107 (ISBN13: 9780862321109)
Edition Language:	English
Setting:	Cairo(Egypt)

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“A new world was opening up in front of my eyes, a world which for me had not existed before. Maybe it had always been there, always existed, but I had never seen it, never realized it had been there all the time. How was it that I had been blind to its existence all these years?”- Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero

I was told by a friend that the German title for this book is translated as “I Spit on You,” and it makes a lot of sense after you read the book, because that will probably be your reaction to most of the characters. This is my second El Saadawi book and I wish I’d written a review for the first book of hers that I read, The Innocence of the Devil, because I thought both books were excellent, similar in their approach and very powerful in how they portrayed patriarchy, sexism, hypocrisy, and misogyny.

I love Firdaus, our protagonist, and I think she’s a character who’ll stay with me for a very long time. At the beginning of the novella we find her on death row for killing a man and as she recounts her story to a female psychiatrist who is sent to visit her. We learn more about her. And it’s shocking. It wouldn’t surprise me if many women are able to see themselves in Firdaus, despite the fact that we might not be Egyptian, Muslim etc, like she was. Parts of her story are surely the stories of many women.

The tone of the book starts off so innocently and simply; the change in describing brutal incidents caught me by surprise. From every single man Firdaus encounters she experiences abuse or exploitation of sorts. Firdaus changes because of her experiences and we see how strong she becomes, despite encountering such awful things.

Despite the tragic story, Firdaus has moments of agency and emancipation. This woman who nobody wants, who’s abused time and again, who isn’t helped when she should be, comes up with her own definition of truth based on what she sees and experiences, not what she has been indoctrinated with. El Saadawi exposes the hypocrisy in religious and patriarchal societies with men using tradition for their own purposes:

“I discovered that all these rulers were men. What they had in common was an avaricious and distorted personality, a never-ending appetite for money, sex and unlimited power. They were men who sowed corruption on the earth, and plundered their peoples, men endowed with loud voices, a capacity for persuasion, for choosing sweet words and shooting poisoned arrows. Thus, the truth about them was revealed only after their deaths, and as a result I discovered that history tended to repeat itself with a foolish obstinacy.”

She compares and contrasts marriage and prostitution, and she is often very blunt about what she perceives to be the position of women in society:

“All women are victims of deception. Men impose deception on women and punish them for being deceived, force them down to the lowest level and punish them for falling so low, bind them in marriage and then chastise them with menial service for life, or insults, or blows.”

But there is the hope when women like Firdaus realize the truth but also the power they actually have:

“How many were the years of my life that went by before my body, and my self became really mine, to do with them as I wished? How many were the years of my life that were lost before I tore my body and my self away from the people who held me in their grasp since the very first day?”

And ultimately though the telling of Firdaus’ story, I found myself changed as well, and more understanding of Firdaus’ journey and evolution.

“A man does not know a woman’s value, Firdaus. She is the one who determines her value."

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Title	:	Woman at Point Zero
Author	:	Nawal El Saadawi
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	First Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 112 pages
Published	:	September 15th 1997 by Zed Books (first published 1975)
Categories	:	Fiction. Feminism. Cultural. Africa. Northern Africa. Egypt

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Ratings: 4.06 From 10053 Users | 1349 Reviews

Article Out Of Books Woman at Point Zero

I was hoping that Saadawi would win the Nobel Prize this time round; sadly it wasnt to be. However I suspect she was not surprised, as she says; I am still ignored by big literary powers in the world, because I write in Arabic, and also because I am critical of the colonial, capitalist, racist, patriarchal mind set of the super-powers.However she is much more than just a novelist/writer; she originally trained as a doctor, then went into politics (Public Health). She lost her job because of

3.5 stars. Around the 25% mark, I became utterly grossed in this fever-dreamish book about a woman's path to her liberation.

This translation by an Egyptian female author gives us a traumatic picture of how a young woman is brutalized physically and mentally by just about every man, relative or stranger, that she runs into. She runs away from a brutal husband and becomes a prostitute to survive. At first she turns cheap tricks but later she learns to turn men down, becoming more exclusive and expensive, raising the level of her clientele. She works her way up to being a prostitute who caters to the wealthy political

This novel (described as 'creative non-fiction' in the Foreword) probably describes the grievous and appalling conditions facing millions of women and children around the world today. The subject matter and message are important, but as a novel, it didn't hit the right spot for me.There are quite a few instances where entire passages are repeated or substantially reproduced with only some minor word changes. Struck with a sense of deja vu, at first I thought I had somehow accidentally flipped to

If you live in an Arab Muslim country , you would have probably heard of Nawel Saadaoui once in your lifetime.I know I have. But it took me a while until I decided to pick up one of her books and it is mainly thanks to Ilham , a dear friend of mine , who recommended it to me.I opened the first pages , started reading and next thing i know , there are no pages left for me to read.It's heartbreaking , deeply uncomfortable and mournful.Ferdaous's story is definitely one of those stories that need

Firdaus is in a womans prison, awaiting execution for murder. She is visited by a prison doctor and tells the story of her life. It is a bleak tale, encompassing the death of her parents when she was but a child, rape and exploitation, marriage to a repulsive old skinflint, prostitution, a sojourn in an office and a heartbreaking love story, with the finale being the stabbing to death of her pimp.At times she seems to be just about to break out of her fate - particularly when she finds love with

Nawal El Saadawi is an internationally renowned writer, novelist and fighter for woman's rights, who was born in a village outside Cairo, Egypt. When she was practicing as a psychiatrist in the 1970's she had the opportunity while conducting research into the neurosis of Egyyptian women, to meet with a woman who had been imprisoned for killing a man, a woman who was to be executed by hanging. The woman had refused to speak to anyone until that point, had also refused to sign an appeal to the