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Overview
‘These two women live, to some degree, in every thinking woman.’ New York Times Book Review
‘... an intensely told story ... A valuable opportunity to understand more clearly the currents of thought regarding women in a culture vastly different from the West.’ Christian Science Monitor
‘At a time when nobody else was talking, [El Saadawi] spoke the unspeakable.’ Margaret Atwood, BBC Imagine
‘The leading spokeswoman on the status of women in the Arab world’ The Guardian
‘El Saadawi writes with directness and passion’ New York Times
‘A poignant and brave writer’ Marie Claire
‘El Saadawi has come to embody the trials of Arab feminism’ San Francisco Chronicle
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780863566912 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Saqi Books |
| Publication date: | 12/08/2020 |
| Pages: | 128 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x (d) |
About the Author
She is founder and president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association and cofounder of the Arab Association for Human Rights. Her works have been translated into over forty languages and are taught at universities worldwide.
Deeyah Khan is a Norwegian British documentary film director and human rights activist of Punjabi/Pashtun descent. Deeyah is a two-time Emmy Award winner and the recipient of two BAFTA nominations. Her credits as director and producer include Banaz A Love Story (2012), Jihad: A Story of the Others, and White Right: Meeting The Enemy. She is the founder and CEO of production company Fuuse, and the founder and editor-in-chief of sister-hood Magazine which spotlights the diverse voices of women of Muslim heritage. In 2016 Khan became the inaugural UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Artistic Freedom and Creativity.
Read an Excerpt
It was the fourth of September. She stood with her right foot on the edge of the marble table and her left foot on the floor, a posture unbecoming for a woman – but then in society’s eyes she was not yet a woman, since she was only eighteen. In those days, girls’ dresses made it impossible for them to stand like that. Their skirts wound tightly round the thighs and narrowed at the knees, so that their legs remained bound together whether they were sitting, standing, or walking, producing an unnatural movement. Girls walked with a strange, mechanical gait, their feet shuffling along while legs and knees remained clamped, as if they were pressing their thighs together to protect something they were afraid might fall. She had always been curious to know just what it was that might fall the minute a girl’s legs were parted. Naturally inquisitive, she would constantly watch the worm-like movement of girls as they walked. She did not look very different from these girls, except that she wore trousers, had long legs with straight bones and strong muscles, and could walk firmly, swinging her legs freely and striding out confi¬dently. She was always surrounded by girls – she went to girls’ schools with classes for girls only. Her name always appeared among those of other girls. Bahiah Shaheen: the feminine ending of her name bound it like a link in a chain into lists of girls’ names. Since the human brain is incapable of perceiving the essence of things, everyone knew her as Bahiah Shaheen and no one ever penetrated her true essence. People were always surprised by the way she walked, keeping a visible distance between her knees. She would pretend not to notice them staring at that gap. She would just keep walking, moving her legs, keeping them apart and putting each foot down with a firmness that she knew did not belong to Bahiah Shaheen. On that day, her eighteenth birthday, she was standing in her usual way: right foot on the edge of the marble table, left foot on the floor. At the time, neither men nor women would assume such a posture. It required a pair of confident legs with flexible muscles and strong, sound bones. Childhood malnutrition had made most boys bow-legged. The most they would dream of doing was to lift one foot and balance it on the edge of a low wooden stand. She often saw boys standing this way. It was normal and permis¬sible – but only for males. The one man who could lift his foot higher and rest it on the edge of the table was Dr Alawi, the anatomy lecturer, who would sweep past the tables in his white coat and white glasses. When he stopped at a table, the male students would take their feet down from the stools and stand before him, their legs together. Dr Alawi, however, would lift his leg high and plant his foot confidently on the edge of the table, looking directly at the students with his unflinching blue gaze. When he stood at her table, she would never take her foot down. When he fixed his blue eyes on her, she would stare back at him with her own black eyes. She knew full well that black is stronger than blue, parti¬cularly where eyes are concerned. Black is the origin, the root that reaches back into the depths of the earth. Holding the forceps in his white, blood-splattered fingers, he would stick his hand into the gaping stomach of a corpse, or grab at something in an arm, leg, head or neck, then bellow in his strident voice, ‘What’s this?’ He would always pick the smallest of things – a tiny vein crossing the underside of a small muscle, a fine artery hidden under a fold of skin, or a nerve as delicate as a hair, so thin it could hardly be picked up by the forceps. Eight girls stood around one corpse. More than one of them knew the names of all the veins, nerves and arteries by heart. No sooner did Dr Alawi ask what a particular object was than a sharp but low feminine voice rang out with the correct answer. He would always look at her, expecting her to answer, to prove to him that she knew, but she couldn’t help it, she refused to be examined by anyone. On that fourth of September, she felt that something big would happen to her. She had the same feeling every fourth of September. When she opened her eyes in the morning the sun would be shining in an un¬usual way and her mother’s eyes were glittering and sharp. ‘On a day like this’, she would whisper to herself, ‘something big happened to my mother – she gave birth to me.’ Each year she felt that some¬thing big would happen again on that day, something even bigger than being born. Whenever Bahiah whis¬pered this idea to her mother, she would laugh that feminine laugh so typical of those times – holding back and letting go at the same time, producing a kind of staccato braying. ‘Oh, come on, Bahiah’, she would say.