An excellent book. I saw the cover of the book someone was carrying for a Women's Studies class, and decided to buy it on a whim. It was excellent. From the back: From her prison cell, Firdaus, sentenced to die for having killed a pimp in a Cairo street, tells of her life from village childhood to city prostitute. Society's retribution for her act of defiance -- death -- she welcomes as the only way she can finally be free. I'll be starting a perpetual ray for this one.

Starting a ring for this one. Participants so far:

Heaven150, CAN
sqdancer, CAN
sally906, AUS
Sherlockfan, NZ
Sternschnuppe28, GER
PCSAF, POR
lauraloo29, CAN
e-marmotte, FR
Pluisje, NZ
busybooklover,CA
nicolesinger, NC
Joanthro, CO
Bulan-Purnama, OR
SqueakyChu, MD
reader1107, WI
SeamonkeyofTVCH, CA
queensknob, VA
ajsmom, CAN
TheWhiteLion, UK
NatGilder, UK
fio-dagua, PORT
mairbu, JAP
hAnG-gLiDiNg-1, TN
tireddebb, CT
wyldewomin, MASS
Lobodyke, KY
susanmrz, NJ
Rico-Verde, FL
mrsordonez, MO

Mailed to Heaven150 yesterday.

Received this book yesterday. Can't wait to read it.

A quick read. The book is very good, although I couldn't relate very well to Firdaus. Her view on life, men and being a woman are completely different than mine own. It's very tragic that she felt she was better off being a prositute. I will be mailing this out to sqdancer tomorrow.

Mailed today to sqdancer.

Arrived safe and sound. I am nearly finished the book that I am reading and this will be up next, probably tomorrow. Thank you for sharing.

It's truly impossible to completely absorb the difference in social norms that leads a person to that point. It is such a different world from that in which we live here in North America. I feel that now I have at least a slightly better understanding; although a true understanding would be impossible without actually living in that cultural environment.

Sent Monday, Jan 31/05 to sally906 in Australia via airmail.

Arrived in the mail today - thank goodness is a small book - won't take me long:)

I couldn't work out if this was a real true story, or fiction made out to appear as though it is a real story. Whatever the background, Firdaus would represent the meaningless life that many women in the middle East live - and I think we'ed be surprised by the number of 'western' women that are treated like this as well.

Is on it's way to sherlockfan

Arrived today, Feb 26th. I have a couple of bookring books ahead of it but will do my best to get it on its way quickly. Doesn't look very thick so shouldn't take too long.
Thanks Sally906

I hardly know what to say about this book. Such a horrendous life the author describes for Firdaus. More than anything else it makes me grateful for the situation in which I grew up. Is it simply chance that puts one person in one place, and the Firdauses of this world in such hideous situations with almost zero choices; run and keep running until inevitably tragedy occurs?
Truth or fiction? Like Sally906 I did wonder; there was a ring about it that seemed authentic until I re-read the author's preface and realised that it is an amalgam of experiences. The preface itself is thought provoking.
Would that we could believe that things are changing for Firdauses everywhere.
Not the sort of book to forget in a hurry, much as one would like to.

RELEASE NOTE:

Posted off to Sternschnuppe28 in Germany today 7 March.

I would say that maybe, as there is another New Zealand bookcrosser on this reading list, we could both have been included in sequence. Postage internationally is quite hefty from here, so backwards and forwards across the world in not very cost-effective.

In fact Pluisje actually passed through Wellington this weekend.

Today is a very beautiful spring day, and while I am sitting outside on the terrace and enjoying my coffee in the morning sun, the postman has brought in "Woman at Point Zero". Thanks a lot to mrsordonez for initiating the ring and to Sherlockfan for sending it all the way around the world to me and including some very nice surprises. More to share after reading.

A fast read. This book is a compelling account of a battered woman, which ends in a bittersweet triumph, told from a strong, muslim-feminist perspective: a tale of a woman´s search for freedom from the restrictions of her Egyptian-Arabic society.
"Woman at Zero Point" will definitely leave a lasting impression in my mind and heart and motivates me to search for more books by Nawal El Saadawi.

I have already pmed PCSAF for her address, but have not heard from her yet. For the moment I passed the book by to my boy-friend, who asked me for it, when he saw it on my desk. He is originally from Africa (Ethiopia), too, that is why I am curious about his opinion.

So, even more to come.

Sorry for causing such a delay in forwarding the book. Today "Woman at Point Zero" will continue its journey to Portugal. My boy-friend enjoyed reading it very much, and I even heard him recommending it to other people. He also used it as an intro to an article on Women and the Islam.

Got it!! Thanks Sandra.

It's a bit shocking thinking about what happens to women in other cultures.. I enjoyed it. I'm glad I joined this bookring. It's on it's way to Canada now.

Arrived safe and sound today. I have 2 other books before it, but I will get to this quickly. Thank you.

Certainly interesting. I did find it a hard slow read for some reason. I can't relate to Firdaus' life, but I can empathize. I shall certainly think of this when I think of other prostitutes.

On its way to France next week. Thank you for sharing!

Book made it safe and sound to France last Saturday. I have got 3 BookRings queueing up before that one, so I hope you won't mind the wait... (I may try to squeeze it in between, though).
Thank you all !

I read this book during my vacation in the Alps, in the train from Geneva to my parents' and then from Embrun back home in Paris.

I had been wanting to read this book because I was advised to read this author by several male friends of North-African origins. They all said she was a major feminist writer.

I also was surprised to see that Firdaus, clever as she was, chose to "use the situation" for what she thought her benefit. But indeed, did she have any choice?
What disturbed me most is Nawal El-Saadawi's style: all the repetitions, and some scenes depicting the feelings and visions of the heroin (and also the narrator's, at the beginning, when she sought to meet Firdaus). I found it sometime outrageous and bound to cause harm to its original aim : defend the cause of women...
Nevertheless, I still look forward to reading other books by Nawal El-Saadawi, to make a better opinion, and learn more about women's life in muslim countries.

Thanks again for having kindly offered that I join the bookring, mrsordonez !

The book is now on its way to pluisje in New Zealand.

This little book is certainly making kilometers, traveling back and forth the different continents.
Thanks for sharing msordonez and tank you e-marmotte for your lovely postcard.
About the book, I don't really know what to expect and haven't read the other journals yet.
Recently I did read "Do they hear you when you cry" by Fauziya Kassindja which left me with a culture shock.
Will try and read this week.

I just wanted to invite all of you who enjoyed this book to join my other ring, Price of Honor by Jan Goodwin. It is about how Islam affects women across the Middle East. Not a singular personal account, but also very intriguing.... Click and PM if you want to join!

Price of Honor.

This book is easily read in one evening but the echo of this haunting tale remained in my head all week.
No one can judge the choices that the main character Firdaus (Arabic for paradise) makes after going through the experience of circumcision, rejection, abandonement, rape and betrayal.
She and many other women are given no tools to control their own life.
This does make you dream of a just society.

The book is all ready in an envelope to travel to busybooklover. I will drop it off at the post office tomorrow.

Arrived in the mail today. Thanks for the beautiful postcard! The description of this book reminded me of Wally Lamb's collection of stories (by women prison inmates) Apparently he helped run a writing workshop out of a prison and the resulting stories were compelling enough to warrant publishing. <ore when I?ve read... will pass on quickly...

Here is a link to a bookring for the Wally Lamb book busybooklover is talking about:

Couldn't Keep it To Ourselves

This was my first read of 2006 and it was a great way to start the new year. It opened my eyes to a more personal view of what it might be like to be a woman born into such a brutally unequal society. Thank you for sharing it.. I will PM the next reader in the RING and mail out asap! 1/4/06 UPDATE: Have address from nicolesinger and am mailing out today. The picture is one I googled of the author.

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to nicolesinger
in Newport, NC *enjoy!* ♥ ~BBL ♥

This arrived in today's mail, safe and sound! I hadn't expected it to be so small - I'm on p. 18 of 108. I think this is going to be one of those books where I can't quite make up my mind what I think about it until I've finished it - and maybe not for a while after that!

Thanks to mrsordenez for the ring and busybooklover for getting it to me, and the lovely bookmark!

This was a quick read! I started and finished it Friday night, but have put off journaling because I wanted a chance to digest what I'd read and sort out my impressions.

It's hard to know how to take this book. It's so unrelentingly grim - every time Firdaus rejects one situation in order to be free, she finds she's even worse off. And yet the message comes through loud and clear: as long as society permits men to treat women as property, no woman is really safe, no matter how palatable her current situation.

There were some stylistic things that nagged me. I didn't think bracketing the main story with the psychologist's narration did much for the book overall. There were sections of the story - such as her encounter with her teacher and her later encounter with her lover - which were repeated word-for-word. But those may be part of the author's literary tradition or a holdover from an oral tradition, and it didn't detract from the story, just caught my attention. In some ways, the repetition made it feel as though I was reading a narrative poem. I did wonder, too, how much of the original cadence and meaning may have been lost in the translation.

I have Joanthro's address and will mail Tuesday morning. (I think I said Monday in my PM, but the P.O. will be closed for MLK Jr. Day.)

Sent 1/17/06. First class postage was actually less expensive than media rate, so it should travel quickly!

The book has arrived safely in Denver - I look forward to reading this!

I'm not sure what caught my eye about this Bookring, but I haven't had such a great read and found such an important author in a long while.

The book arrived just as I was finshing The Ginger Tree and was closley followed by Strangers in Paradise. (I've had an unplanned but very intense few days of reading "women and power" themed books!) I didn't know what to expect when I opend the book, but was drawn in right away and proceeded very quickly to stunned as I read through the book. The allegorical story and the author's style left me feeling like I'd been beaten with a blunt object; I immediately started over and read it again.

While this book is obviously about issues of women and power in Egypt, it is also about class and gender and the lingering results of colonialism. Firdaus, because of her gender and class, has no choices and is ironically only able to get some power in her life by selling herself to the men who oppress her. Her ultimate power comes when she refuses to beg for her life, refusing to participate in a "rigged" system that no woman can win. Since it is allegory, even those of us born in the affluent West can see parallels to the lives of women outside Egypt. While we cannot truly understand the poverty the author writes about, we can certainly see parallels in the feminization of poverty and the ongoing, although subtle, opression of women here. The importance of this book cannot be understood only as a description of those "poor women over there"; it is an indictment of all systems of power which keep some people poor and powerless.

Thanks so much mrsordenz for making this book available. I think I will be looking for all El Saadawi's books!

Mailed off to the next person earlier today.

Book arrived today and I have started reading. It is a small book, so, hope to finish within next week.

A tragic story of a woman who happen to live in a male dominated society.   In this kind of environment women generally treated as a second class citizen.   It is sad to know Firdaus chose to continue life as a prostitute, instead of a decent work. Is this because society where she lived dictate a woman is worth nothing? Perhaps Firdaus enjoyed this kind of life or should I say addicted? Ironically her name Firdaus in Arabic means paradise or heaven.

On her style of writing, I had at the beginning difficulty to understand. Gradually, though, I found a little bit easier. Good writer nevertheless.

Thank you mrsordonez for sharing and joanthro for mailing the book.

Mailed the book this morning to squeaky chu. Happy reading!

The book arrived with today's mail...and I found a post card in it. How nice! Thank you.

Wow! This book has had a terrific journey so far. I promise to take good care of it and help it continue to travel.

I was not especially taken by the literary style of Nawal El Saadawi's novel, but was impressed by the truths she was trying to convey.

Although Faroud was a person who excessively hated men, I thought the book's message was more that all people (...and, in the case of this novel, all women) need to be free, the truths of their difficult lives be exposed, and their individual merits be recognized.

I am amazed at the strength of this Egyptian author who, despite 13 years in an Egyptian prison, had seriously contemplated running for president of Egypt (a decision which she subsequently withdrew). For certain, I’ll be looking for more books of hers.

Thank you, msordonez, for introducing me to Nawal El Saadawi. Thank you, also, for sharing this book with me and for the hard work you do on your bookrings/rays website.

The book is now in the mail to reader1107 in Wisconsin.

Received in the mail today along with the lovely, clever bookmark! I look forward to reading this right away! Thanks!

Wow, I'm so sorry! I didn't finish reading it until tonight, because it was a really intense book, even though it's small! Some of the circular stuff was annoying (repeated motifs I guess?) but it showed a fascinating glimpse into a woman's life in Egypt! I've read primarily books of women's lives lately, from a Saudi princess to a Canadian frontier school teacher to a Swiss-Iranian woman, and it is amazing how different the rules are for women. I can't help but wonder how it is that men got to make these rules and women go along with them -- well, except for Firdaus!

Thanks so much for sharing it and for your patience! I'm mailing it out tomorrow after school.

RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to the next person on the list! I'll post the delivery confirmation number later; right now there's a kitty on me!

USPS delivery confirmation number: 0305 2710 0002 9163 7509

Received this book in the mail today from reader1107. Thanks! That was fast. Will read soon and pass along.

From http://www.nawalsaadawi.net/bio.htm

Nawal El Saadawi

Nawal El Saadawi is a novelist, a psychiatrist and a writer who is well known both in the Arab countries and in many other parts of the world. Her novels and her books on the situation of women in Egyptian and Arab society have had a deep effect on successive generations of young women over the last three decades.


As a result of her literary and scientific writings she has had to face numerous difficulties and even dangers in her life. In 1972 she lost her job in the Egyptian government. The magazine, Health, which she had founded and editted for more than three years was closed down. In 1981 President Sadat put her in prison. She was released one month after his assassination.


Today her name figures on the one of the death lists issued by some fanatical terrorist organizations. This list was also publicized in a neighboring Arab country and in cassettes which are widely distributed all over the country.


On June 15, 1991, the government issued a decree which closed down the Arab Women's Solidarity Association over which she presides and hand over its funds to the Association called Women in Islam. Six months before this decree the government closed down the magazine, Noon, published by the Association. She was Editor in Chief of this Magazine.


Nawal El Saadawi has been awarded several national and international literary prizes, and has lectured in many universities and participated in many international and national conferences. Her works have been translated into over 30 languages all over the world, and some of them are taught in a number of university colleges in different countries.


These universities include in Egypt: The American University in Cairo; Cairo University; Ain Sham University in Cairo. In the United States; Duke University; The University of Washington in Seattle; Harvard University; Yale University; New York University; Columbia University; The University of California at Berkeley; The University of Illinois; Georgetown University; The University of Virginia; UCLA; Indiana University and others. She has lectured at Oxford and Cambridge, at the Sorbonne in Paris, at Bern University in Switzerland, and widely throughout the rest of Europe.




Chronology:

Visiting Professor, Duke University Center for International Studies and Program in Asian and African Languages and Literature, 1993-1994
Head of Women's Program in the UN-ECWA Beirut, Lebanon, 1978-1980
Consultant on Women's Programs in the UN, ECA, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1978-1979
Author in the Supreme Council for Arts and Social Sciences, Cairo, Egypt, 1974-1978
Acting Director General and Director General, Health Education Department, Ministry of Health, Cairo, Egypt, 1966-1972
Medical Doctor, University Hospital and Ministry of Health, 1955-1965
Other Professional Activities:

Founder and President, Arab Women Solidarity Association, 1982-Present, and Founder, Noon Magazine, magazine of the Association, 1989-1991.
Co-founder, Arab Association for Human Rights, 1983-1987
Founder and Vice-President, African Association for Women on Research and Development, Dakkar, Senegal, 1977-1987
President and Organizer, International Conference on the Challenges Facing Arab Women, Cairo, September 1986
Founder, Health Education Association and Chief Editor, Health Magazine, Cairo, Egypt, 1968-1974
Founder, Egyptian Women Writer's Association, 1971
Secretary-General of Medical Association, Cairo, Egypt, 1968-1972

Awards:


Honorary Doctorate, University of York, United Kingdom, 1994
First Degree Decoration of the Republic of Libya, 1989
Literary Award of Gubran, 1988
Arab Association of Australia Award, 1988
Literary Award by the Franco-Arab Friendship Association, Paris, France, 1982
Literary Award by the Supreme Council for Arts amd Social Sciences, Cairo, Egypt, 1974





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sherif Hetata

Sherif Youssef Hetata is a novelist and medical doctor. He is married to Nawal El Saadawi and has two children. He occupied various posts and functions since he graduated from the medical college with honors in 1946. These included a period of eight years with the International Labour Organization in Asia, then in Africa. During that period he was Head of a Team of Experts on Population and Migration.


He has written on many subjects including travel, politics and health, but since 1968 has devoted himself to novels. He has translated some of his own works as well as some of the works of Nawal El Saadawi into English. He was Assistant Editor of the magazine, Health, in the early 1970s and of the feminist magazine, Noon, in the early nineties.


He has travelled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, and has participated in many conferences and carried out lecture tours in various countries.
In Egypt he was a member of the Board of the Medical Syndicate and participated in founding the Association for Health Education in 1969, and the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in 1982. He speaks and writes Arabic, English and French fluently.
He worked for nine years in the Egyptian government service. First in the Ministry of Health planning and organizing primary health care services in rural areas, then in the planning department of the public sector drug industry, and lastly in the Supreme Council for Population and Family Planning. During the last period he attended several regional conferences on population and migration, spent three months at Chicago University in an exchange program, and participated in negotiations with the World Bank.


Half of his period with the ILO was spent in Asia and the other half in Africa.
In Asia he was based in New Delhi and was responsible for developing projects on population and migration with the concerned government authorities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He travelled extensively especially in India where he visited most of the states. He worked closely with high level government officials, parliamentarians, university professors, research institutes, political parties, trade unions and non-governmental organization. During this period he also travelled to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines. Many of these travels and experiences are reflected in his book, "The Way of Salt and Love." During this period ten projects related to population and migration were developed, and assisted by his office in the ILO. In Africa he was based in Addis Ababa and travelled extensively in Saharan Africa where he visited twelve countries in both the Eastern, Southern and Western parts of the continent.
He worked for several years at the head of a task force in the Egyptian Medical Syndicate on policies and plans related to primary health care and health insurance and his professional experience in this area was reflected in his book, "Health and Development." (Dar El Maaref Publishing House, 1968.)


There are many reviews of his works in the Arabic press and some in the English press but these are documented at home in Egypt.


He has attended several international writers' conferences in Helsinki, London, Johannesburg, and Copenhagen. He received the Gold Medal of the Faculty of Medicine in Physiology. He has lectured in many universities including Cambridge, Norwich, Sussex, London, Amsterdam, Harvard, North Carolina State University, Chicago University and others. He has given public lectures in many countries of the world and has taught for two semesters at Duke University, and one semester at the University of Washington in Seattle. The courses were on creativity, resistance literature and the Arab World and Women.



Dr. Saadawi and Dr. Hetata were also members of the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal, that investigated war crimes against Iraq. Text of the investigation could be found at:




This book is sobering. I felt that it was a heavy weight for such a small book! The feeling was one of hopelessness for the most part. Firdaus' only method of maintaining control was to have power over the men (that which had always been done to her). At the point where she had become wealthy, I wanted to hear that she used that wealth to get more education, to escape from being a prostitute, but then reality set in about the timeframe of the book, the setting, the culture and the fact that the author herself had all that education but was still made powerless when she used her voice to express her own opinions. And she ended up in prison.

Thanks so much for making this book available and to all of you for sharing your thoughts!

I've PM'd Queensknob for her address and look forward to passing this along.

ETA: This is now in the mail on its way to Queensknob!

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to Queensknob!

Found this book in my mailbox today...looking forward to reading it.

Such an interesting read that I couldn't put down - finished in one day & ready to pass along.

Mailing along to ajsmom on May 30, 2006.

Received today, thanks!

This book took me longer to read than I expected. I think that is basically because I didn't really enjoy the writing style. The word-for-word repetitions of certain scenes grated a bit, although it made me think back to try and figure out WHY the author would do that. I found it depressing that Firdaus would feel that becoming a prostitute would ultimately empower and liberate her, even though the physical act left her empty, feeling "neither pleasure nor pain".

I'm glad I had the chance to read it - it is certainly a different point of view from what I am used to reading. I would be interested in reading more books by Muslim women, I think.

I have PM'd TheWhiteLion for an address and will have this in the mail as soon as I hear.

RELEASE NOTES:

Just received the book and am looking forward to reading it.

Didn't really enjoy the book, but I guess it's because it has such a depressing story. Also didn't like the authors writing style and the repeated symbolism. I definitely learned more about Arab-Egyptian culture than I knew before, and have a bigger aversion to the sort of religions that encourage men to treat women like this.

Just received the book. I have a couple of others to read first but I promise i'll be quick. Can't wait to read it. Thanks :)

Sorry it has taken so long to read.

I didn't really enjoy this book as much as I'd hoped. I found it hard going and the layout got on my nerves a bit. But it is a tragic story and I'm glad I had a chance to read it.
Thanks.

Sent the book on to fio-dagua a few days ago. Sorry for the delay (just been rather busy moving back into university). Enjoy the book!

i'm very sorry i forgot to journal this one! i'll be sending it in a few days.

I'm starting a new ring Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak... PM if interested in joining!