Woman at Point Zero, by Nawal El Saadawi

By Tannaz Allaway  on Monday 19 November 2007

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An Arab prostitute on death row gives her life story

On a recent speaking tour, an exuberant Nawal El Saadawi insisted that every person who asked a question come to the front, so she could look into their eyes as they spoke. An eccentric but very likeable figure, she discussed a range of topics to do with her work as doctor, feminist and human rights activist in Egypt – campaigns that led, amongst other things, to her imprisonment in the Eighties.

Her views are at times controversial – she rebukes make-up, for instance, likening it to the veil; she also argues against women taking the husband's name after marriage. But it's this thorn she stabs in the side of conceived notions (some of her books have been banned in Egypt) that makes El Saadawi such a poignant – and brave – writer.

Now in her seventies and with a number of literary and academic accolades, three of the author's bestsellers have just been re-published. Woman At Point Zero is based on a true-life meeting between El Saadawi and a prostitute, Firdhaus, condemned to death for murdering her pimp.

The story follows the life of Firdhaus leading up to her execution – as a young girl used for labour by cruel step-parents, sold off to a hideous, brutal husband, and eventually escaping the stranglehold of this relationship to gain her only form of independence, where sex commands a price.

Examining the status of women in patriarchal Arab society, El Saadawi argues that such a system reduces women to merely sexual objects, or at least objects entirely at the command of men. With such limited rights, Firdhaus finds the one way in which she can express herself and seek freedom: by receiving payment for sex. Eventually, however, even this avenue is coveted by masculine greed, leading to Firdhaus's one remaining form of escape.

Originally published in 1973, Woman at Point Zero is an eye-opening novel and, considering recent debates on the veil, still highly relevant. Also re-published is El Saadawi's The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World, an account which delves deeper into the startling topics of the novel.

Woman at Point Zero (paperback, £7.99, Zed Books) is out now.

***

Review by Tannaz Allaway

Release date: Monday 19 November 2007

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