‘El Saadawi has a flair for melodrama and mystery. It is a fictional account based on the life of a female prisoner on death row that Sadawi met when she was conducting research on. Over the course of her life, Firdaus’s concept of surveillance from the eyes of ones around her is: a method that people use to hold her captive from freely living her life. ‘Woman at Point Zero should begin the long march towards a realistic and sympathetic portrayal of Arab women.’ Woman at Point Zero is a form of creative non-fiction. In Woman at Point Zero, by Nawal El Saadawi, Firdaus discloses her thoughts and attitudes towards the captivity and surveillance she experiences throughout her life. ‘A powerful indictment of the treatment of women in many parts of the Middle East’ ‘The most influential feminist thinker in the Arab world over the past half-century.’ Woman at Point Zero is the story of one Arab woman, but it reads as if it is every woman’s life.’ ‘This extraordinary novel, written with such compassion, forces us to the edge, and deep inside what must be one of the worst tales of women’s oppression while somehow managing to inspire hope, if only through the courage of Nawal El Saadawi for being one of the first to tell this story to the world.’ This is a tale of injustice, inequality and sheer bad luck - written with such grace and skill as to be on a part with the finest literature of this or any era - haunting, poetic and fiercely relevant.’ ‘A dramatic female revolt against the norms of the Arab world’ ‘Nawal El Saadawi writes with directness and passion, transforming the systematic brutalisation of peasants and of women in to powerful allegory’

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