Reviews

"... readers cannot but be drawn into the catastrophe of Firdaus's life in such a way that her hopes and disappointments become theirs. You do not have to be a lost little girl to appreciate how great was Firdaus's need for her uncle and how terrible the shock when he abused her. You do not have to be a sex worker to understand how circumstances threw her into the pit of prostitution and how the demons drove her to murder her pimp."

from the back cover:

"however, every single man I did get to know filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face."

when Firdaus was a young girl, she noticed that her father looked like other men..

" so one day I asked my mother about him. How was it that she had given birth to me without a father? First she beat me. Then she brought a woman who was carrying a small knife or maybe a razor blade. They cut off a piece of Flesh from between my thighs."

" when one of his female children died, my father would eat his supper, my mother would wash his legs, and then he would go to sleep, just as he did every day. When the child that died was a boy, he would beat my mother, then have his supper and lie down to sleep.

My father never went to bed without supper, no matter what happened. Sometimes when there was no food at home we would all go to bed with empty stomachs. But he would never fail to have a meal. My mother would hide his food from us at the bottom of one of the holes in the oven. He would sit eating alone while we watched him. One evening I dared to stretch out my hand to his plate, but he struck me a sharp blow over the back of my fingers."

When Firdaus is away at school, she discovers the library at the school. After this, she developed a love of books and learned so many new things. She read about many different things, about the Persians, the Turks and the Arabs.

"...but I preferred books written about rulers. I read about a ruler whose female servants and concubines were as numerous as his army, and about another whose only interests in life were wine, women, and whipping his slaves. A third cared little for women, but enjoyed wars, killing and torturing men. Another of these rulers loved food, money and hoarding riches without end. Still another was possessed with such an admiration for himself and his greatness that for him no one else in the land existed. There was also a ruler so obsessed with plots and conspiracies that he spent all his time distorting the facts of history and trying to fool his people.

I discovered that all these rulers were men. What they had in common was an avaricious and distorted personality, a never-ending appetite for money, sex and unlimited power. They were Men Who Sowed corruption on the earth and plundered their peoples, men endowed with loud voices, a capacity for persuasion, for choosing sweet words and shooting poisoned arrows. Thus the truth about them was revealed only after their deaths, and as a result I discovered that history tended to repeat itself with a foolish obstinacy."

Firdaus's mother and father have died, so she goes to live with her uncle. When her uncle finishes his degree, he brings home a wife, and right away they start having kids. So now the wife starts complaining that Firdaus costs too much money, and they're going to marry her off to a disgusting old man.

"the day came when I departed from my uncle's house and went to live with Sheike Mahmoud. Now I slept on a comfortable bed instead of the wooden couch. But no sooner did I stretch out my body on it to rest from the fatigue of cooking, and washing and cleaning the large house with its rooms full of furniture, than Sheike Mahmoud would appear by my side. He was already over 60, whereas I had not yet turned 19. On his chin, below the lip, was a large swelling, with a hole in the middle. Some days the hole would be dry, but on others it would turn into a rusty old tap exuding drops red in color like blood or whitish yellow, like plus.

When the hole dried up, I let him kiss me. I could feel the swelling on my face and lips like a small purse, or a water skin, full of stagnant greasy fluid. But on days when it was not dry I would turn my lips and face away to avoid the odor of dead dogs which emanated from it.

At night he would wind his legs and arms around me, and let his old, gnarled hand travel all over my body, like the claws of a starving man who has been deprived of real food for many years wipe the bowl of food clean, and leave not a single crumb behind."

This disgusting man grosses Firdaus out so much that one day she leaves and goes back to her uncle's. But her uncle forces her to go back. when she comes back, Sheikh Mahmoud beats her and forces her kiss him and to have sex with him even when the hole in his face is leaking Pus and blood. After this she runs away for good.

Firdaus becomes a prostitute. She learns from a real Pro and makes good money. one day she goes out on her own. Unfortunately, she's affected by the words of one of her johns, who tells her that she's not respectable because she's a sex worker.

Thus, she gets a job working in an office in a factory. She makes little money so she lives in a small room and has to share a disgusting bathroom with the whole line of people.

She learns her lesson the hard way about men. A man that she works with had told her the magic words of how he loved her and all that bullshit. She believes him, but all he wants to do is use her body. Her coworker tries to set her straight.

"the eyes of the people riding in the buses no longer looked dull and jaundiced, but glowed and shown with a new light. When I looked into the mirror my eyes sparkled like diamonds. My body had become like a feather, and I could work all day without tiring, or feeling a need to sleep.

One morning a colleague of mine in the office stared at my face, and then exclained with a note of wonderment in her voice: 'what's going on,Firdaus?'

'why?' I inquired.

'your face is not the same.'

'What do you mean, not the same?'

'it's as though it's radiating some inner glow.'

'I'm in love.'

'in love?'

'do you know what it is to love?' I asked.

'no,' she said sadly.

'you poor thing,' said I.

'you poor, deluded woman,' said she, 'do you believe there is any such thing as love?'

'love has made me a different person. It has made the world beautiful.'

There was a deep note of sadness in her voice as she spoke. 'you're living an illusion. Do you believe the words of Love they whisper in the ears of penniles women like us?' "

She finds out that the son of a bitch has just gotten engaged to the daughter of the CEO of the company.

This was triggering to me. I can still remember when I was in high school, 17 years old, and some son of a bitch pulled the wool over my eyes. I remember going to school and feeling like Firdaus did when she was on the bus. everything looked beautiful and when I looked in the mirror I saw how beautiful I looked.

And that son of a bitch turned out to be just like any other vicious fucking son of a bitching man. They ruin you just so they can stick their nasty pencils in you.

This story, even if you're not Misandrist, it could very easily make you so. If you are Misandrist, it will make you clench your teeth with rage for the way Firdaus was treated and for the way that all women are treated.

Firdaus describes how she felt and acted when she was in love with a man.

"... but in love I gave all: my capabilities, my efforts, my feelings, my deepest emotions. Like a saint, I gave everything I had without ever counting the cost. I wanted nothing, nothing at all, except perhaps one thing. To be saved through love from it all. To find myself again, to recover the self I had lost. To become a human being who is not looked upon with scorn, or despised, but respected, and cherished and made to feel whole."

this is how I was, when I was "in love." When I met the man who I married, I gave everything, just like Firdaus says. What did he do? He stomped on that love, he tore everything that I felt into pieces, and threw them on the ground. I learned the hard way to never trust a man again.

Firdaus learns that as well, and she becomes strong and holds her head up like the queen that she is. Never again will she let a man treat her badly.

Firdaus kills a man who was hurting her. She and I came to the same realization, and I thank the universe that I'm one of the lucky ones.

".. I am speaking the truth now without any difficulty. For the truth is always easy and simple. And in its Simplicity lies a Savage power. I only arrived at the savage, Primitive truths of life after years of struggle. For it is only very rarely that people can arrive at the simple, but awesome and Powerful truths of life after only a few years. And to have arrived at the truth means that one no longer fears death. For death and Truth are similar in that they both require a great courage if one wishes to face them. And Truth is like death in that it kills. When I killed I did it with truth not with a knife. That is why they are afraid and in a hurry to execute me. They do not fear my knife. It is my truth which frightens them. This fearful truth gives me great strength. It protects me from fearing death, or life, or hunger, or nakedness, or destruction. It is this fearful truth which prevents me from fearing the brutality of rulers and policemen.

I Spit with ease on their lying faces and words, on their lying newspapers.

Bravo Firdaus. Bravo this author Nawal El Saadawi. What a wonderful woman to tell Firdaus's story.