ENCW 306: Fall 2018
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 20th, 2018
My self-confidence began to be badly shaken, and I went through difficult moments. It looked to me as though this woman who had killed a human being, and was shortly to be killed herself, was a much better person than I. Compared to her, I was nothing but a small insect crawling upon the land […]
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 20th, 2018
In Women at Point Zero, Firdaus tells her story, a story of loneliness, rape, inequality, and longing. Nawal El Saadawi is the mouthpiece for Firdaus. Unable to tell her own story, as she is imprisoned and awaiting execution, Saadawi is the mouthpiece for Firdaus. Saadawi gives a voice to a point of view that would normally […]
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 20th, 2018
One of the major things I noticed while reading Woman at Point Zero is the repetition of eye imagery. The first time I noted that this was something to pay attention to was when Firdaus describes what her mother looked like the first time she saw her. She says, “I can remember two eyes. I […]
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 19th, 2018
After reading Amber’s blog post, I strongly agree with the connection she made between Woman at Point Zero and A Thousand Splendid Suns. While I was in the process of reading Woman at Point Zero, I continuously found connections between Saadawi’s book and The Kite Runner (which is the novel which prefaces A Thousand Splendid Suns). I found […]
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 19th, 2018
Reading Woman at Point Zero brings to mind a book with a similar premise that I read in high school, A Thousand Splendid Suns. In both novels, the protagonist is executed for killing a man. Firdaus’ impending execution is the frame story for Woman at Point Zero, while Mariam’s execution in A Thousand Splendid Suns […]
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 19th, 2018
“I held her eyes in mine, took her hand in mine. The feeling of our hands touching was strange, sudden. It was a feeling that made my body tremble with a deep distant pleasure, more distant than the age of my remembered life, deeper than the consciousness I had carried with me throughout. I could […]
Posted in Music on Sep 19th, 2018
The reception accorded the death of Umm Kulthum showed how powerful and beloved the Egyptian vocalist had become. With the streets of Cairo lined by several million mourners, Kulthum’s fans took her body from the shoulders of of the official pallbearers and passed her from person to person for the three-hour-long journey to the mosque […]
Posted in Poetry on Sep 19th, 2018
Mubtadiyah by Leila Chatti (Arabic) Beginner: One who sees blood for the first time. “And indeed, [appointed] over you are keepers, Noble and recording; They know whatever you do.” —The Holy Quran 82: 10-12 Hidden in a dim stall as the muezzin called all worshipers to prayer, I touched privately the indelible stain. And watched, […]
Posted in Nawal El Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero on Sep 12th, 2018
Posted in Poetry on Sep 12th, 2018
Beginnings by Mahtem Shiferraw This is not how it begins but how you understand it. I walk many kilometers and find myself to be the same— the same moon hovering over the same, bleached sky, and when the officer calls me it is a name I do not recognize, a self I do not recognize. […]