Woman at Point Zero

by Nawal El Saadawi

Overview

Internationally acclaimed Egyptian feminist writer Nawal El Saadawi's landmark novel Woman at Point Zero, published here with a new foreword.

Firdaus is on death row. Her crime, the murder of a man. Born into poverty in a rural Egyptian village, her childhood dreams and ambitions had been met with neglect and abuse by the world and the men who rule it. Driven to sex work to support herself, she is faced with the moral outrage of society and the bitter knowledge that for a woman, true freedom comes only when all hope is abandoned. In Woman at Point Zero, Firdaus tells her unforgettable story.

Woman at Point Zero is also available in audiobook format from audiobook retailers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780755651504
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/27/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	152
Sales rank:	228,622
File size:	419 KB

About the Author

Nawal El Saadawi was born in a village outside Cairo, Egypt, in 1931. A trained medical doctor, she wrote landmark works on the oppression of Arab women including Woman at Point Zero (1973), God Dies by the Nile (1976) and The Hidden Face of Eve (1977). After being imprisoned by Anwar Sadat's government for criticising the regime, she founded the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in 1982, before being forced into exile in later life due to death threats by religious extremists. She returned to Egypt in 1996, running for president in 2005 until government persecution forced her to withdraw. Saadawi died in Egypt in 2021.
Nawal El Saadawi was an internationally renowned writer, novelist and fighter for women's rights both within Egypt and abroad.

Born in 1931, in a village outside Cairo, she wrote her first novel, Diary of a Child Called Souad, at the age of thirteen. Unusually, she and her brothers and sisters were educated together. After graduating from the University of Cairo Medical School in 1955, specializing in psychiatry, she practised as a medical doctor for two years.

From 1963 until 1972, Saadawi worked for the Egyptian government as Director General for Public Health Education. During this time, she studied at Columbia University in New York, where she received her Master's degree in Public Health in 1966. In 1972, however, she lost her job in the government as a result of political pressure. The magazine Health, which she founded and had edited for more than three years, was closed down.

From 1973 to 1978 Saadawi worked at the High Institute of Literature and Science. It was at this time that she began to write, in works of fiction and non-fiction, the books on the oppression of Arab women for which she has become famous. Her most renowned novel, Woman at Point Zero, was published in Beirut in 1973. It was followed in 1976 by God Dies by the Nile and in 1977 by her study of Arab women, The Hidden Face of Eve.

In 1981 Nawal El Saadawi publicly criticized the one-party rule of President Anwar Sadat, and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. She was released one month after Sadat's assassination. In 1982, she established the Arab Women's Solidarity Association, which was outlawed in 1991. For some years during the Mubarak regime, Saadawi lived in exile, teaching in universities in the USA and Europe, including Duke University and Washington State University. Saadawi returned to Egypt in 1996. In 2004 she presented herself as a candidate for the presidential elections in Egypt, with a platform of human rights, democracy and greater freedom for women. In July 2005, however, she was forced to withdraw her candidacy in the face of ongoing government persecution.

Nawal El Saadawi achieved widespread international recognition for her work. She held honorary doctorates from, among others, the universities of York, Illinois at Chicago, St Andrews and Tromso as well as Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Her many prizes and awards include the Premi Internacional Catalunya in 2003, the Council of Europe North–South Prize in 2004, the Women of the Year Award (UK) in 2011, the Sean MacBride Peace Prize (Ireland) in 2012, and the French National Order of Merit in 2013. Her books have been translated into over forty languages worldwide. They are taught in universities across the world.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Miriam Cooke
Author's Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Editorial Reviews

I think her life has been one long death threat. At a time when nobody else was talking, she spoke the unspeakable” —Margaret Atwood

“Nawal El Saadawi writes with directness and passion, transforming the systematic brutalisation of peasants and of women in to powerful allegory” —New York Times

“This book will look you dead in the eye… I thoroughly recommend this book because it will make you examine the ways in which people in impossible situations can retain dignity and control over themselves. Read it wide-eyed” —Books By Broads

“The most influential feminist thinker in the Arab world over the past half-century.” —Financial Times

“El Saadawi has a flair for melodrama and mystery” —International Jourbanal of Middle East Studies

“A powerful indictment of the treatment of women in many parts of the Middle East, Labour Herald Woman at Point Zero should begin the long march towards a realistic and sympathetic portrayal of Arab women” —Middle East International

“Scorching” —New Internationalist

“Simple, but sharp and infuriating... Woman at Point Zero is the story of one Arab woman, but it reads as if it is every woman's life” —Spare Rib

“An unforgettable, unmissable book for the new global feminist” —The Times

“This novella opened my eyes to the ideas of power structures” —Ailah Ahmed, Stylist

“This extraordinary novel, written with such compassion, forces us to the edge, and deep inside what must be one of the worst tales of women's oppression while somehow managing to inspire hope, if only through the courage of Nawal El Saadawi for being one of the first to tell this story to the world” —Jacqueline Rose

“Leaves an indelible mark. This is a tale of injustice, inequality and sheer bad luck - written with such grace and skill as to be on a part with the finest literature of this or any era - haunting, poetic and fiercely relevant” —Scott Pack, The Friday Project

From the Publisher

"An unforgettable, unmissable book for the new global feminist."

London Times

"An unforgettable, unmissable book for the new global feminist."

London Times