Nawal El Saadawi is the author of Woman at Point Zero, God Dies by the Nile, and The Hidden Face of Eve, and nearly forty other works of fiction, non-fiction, drama, and memoir, which have been translated into more than thirty languages. For over four decades, she has been Egypt's most prominent feminist activist; she has survived prison, death threats, and the government shutdown of her Arab Women's Solidarity Association and magazines she edited. She lived in exile for a number of years, and taught at and received honorary degrees from universities and colleges all over the world.
[A] novel within a novel, which follows the life of a young female
writer as her life intertwines with the lives of the famous writer
Roustum, his wife Carmen, and poet called Miriam. In her tenth
novel, El Saadawi gives the reader a deeply felt exploration of the
nature of identity, fame, writing and freedom.-- "Banipal"
[B]eautiful... She writes about the city and sky above it, like a
woman deeply in love with the physical world. 'The sun shone in
Barcelona' she tells us. 'Everything blooms in Barcelona in the
springtime: the eyes of kittens, the virgins of the east, migrating
birds. The sky is transparent blue.' As for her depiction of Cairo,
you feel as she describes it, 'the same heat from thousands of
years ago. From the first Pharaoh to the last one.' You feel the
life of this novel too, of 'The Novel, ' of all the great
novels.--Alan Cheuse "on NPR's All Things Considered"
With a unique approach, Nawal El Saadawi introduces us to the world
of a budding young female writer 'In her search for words to put on
paper, the young woman' encounters many artistic people- writers,
poets, freedom groups and more. Poverty, adulterous sex, forbidden
love, scorn for religious strictures, dirt behind political
maneuvering and mingling of the high and low social classes- all
are covered here! Most of the people she encounters wish to
influence her and impress upon her their own points of view of how
to write and what it is to be a writer Although profound is an
often overused word, its use is completely appropriate to describe
this book. The story covers many touchy subjects that are taboo in
the Muslim world. Reading this book makes you think, makes you
question the traditions and lets you see some of the turmoil of
what it is like to be a writer under such oppressed conditions.
---Rhonda Esakov "www.StoryCircleBookReviews.org"
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
