It's just a short novel but Woman At Point Zero packs several lifetimes of pain into its pages. I've just read it again after an interval of some years and Nawal El Saadawi's evocation of the oppression of women in the Arab world embodied in the tale of her heroine Firdaus seemed if anything more deeply bitter this time around.
But I've certainly changed as a reader. The first time round I took the novel as offering an entirely accurate picture of the Egypt of its period, especially in its depiction of the brutality involved in the way women were treated. Now I'm that bit more aware of the criticisms of the novel as presenting a kind of orientalist version of Arab men, and I really don't know how far this criticism is valid - though I intend to try and dig deeper since I'll be teaching the text in 2021, and I think I owe the writer, the men and women she's depicting, and my students, the honour of an attempt to get as close to some kind of truth on this issue as I can, despite my limitations.
But I remain certain of the essential truth of the work. The wretched of the earth remain so and the truth of their suffering is an essential one.
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