"Woman at Point Zero" by Nawal El Saadawi

 

A Review by Alain English

 

I saw Nawal El Saadawi speaking at the LSE as part of the Free the Word Festival earlier this year.  She spoke of her work as an Arab writer originally from Egypt and of time spent in prison for her writing.  One of the things that amused her audience was her telling her audience "I advise you to go to prison - its' another world, and it taught me to survive."  As well as a writer, Nawal has also been a psychiatrist and it is out of this other profession that this novel arises, through interviewing someone in prison on whose life story the novel is based.

 

The story sees a psychiatrist in Egypt visit a prison and talk with a woman called Firdaus, an enigmatic prisoner who is awaiting execution.  Firdaus tells her tale of growing up in rural Egypt, facing brutal treatment from a string of men, including her father and her uncle.  She later makes a living as prostitute before making a final act of defiance against male power that sees her end up in prison...

 

Through switching perspectives early on from the psychiatrist through to Firdaus herself, Saadawi allows the reader to view the society that Firdaus grows up in, and her response to it, through her own eyes.  It is very effective, and it allows her make a lot of important political points in a very personal way without preaching at the reader.  You feel a sense of injustice at the way Firdaus and her response to a man who brands her as savage and dangerous - "I am speaking the truth and the truth is savage and dangerous" - rings very true.

 

It's a short novel - only 114 pages - but it offers both empathy and insight into the unfair society it depicts. Recommended.