Woman at Point Zero

I read "Woman at Point Zero" by Nawal El Saadawi. This is a very disturbing book and tells about the life of a woman named Firdauswho is condemned to hang for killing a man. Throughout the book Firdaus tells her life story from early teens to the time she is hung. First she tells of having to go out to the fields every morning and how she is molested there by a boy who also has to work in the fields for his family. Then one day after she comes home from the fields a her mother has a woman come over and do a female mutilation on her. She talks of crying herself to sleep at night and not being able to feel anything down there after that. She also talks of abuse and neglect from her father who will not go without his evening meal even though his family does not have anything to eat.

After her parents both die her uncle takes her to live with him. I'm not sure if he was molesting her or not. The book hints at it but doesn't really give any clear indications. He eventually sends her to a boarding school and he marries a woman while Firdaus is at school. She is eventually married off to an old man who beats her and she finally leaves him and becomes a prostitute. She seems to like this lifestyle as she can make her own decisions of who will have her and how much they have to pay. After many years she is harrassed by a pimp, but she stands up to him in the beginning. She eventually finds out she can't get away from him since women are condemned for her line of work and the authorities look the other way for the men involved. He eventually pushes Firdaus past her limit and she stabs him. She talks about how easy it was to stab him which is quite frightening.

After what she has suffered it's understandable why Firdaus hates men, but the things that have happened to her over her lifetime are very disturbing., but it's also frightening how she violently attacked the man she killed. The author is famous for writing about issue that Arab women face in their daily lives.