Author: Nawal EL Saadawi
Publisher: Kali/Zubaan
Year: 1993
Language: English
Pages: 198
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8185107610
Description
Translated from the Arabic, these two novels are rated as favorite of its noted writer.
Woman at Point Zero is the story of Fords, a woman condemned to death for killing a pimp. Firdaus' perceptions evoke for the reader her village childhood, her distasteful marriage in Cairo, prostitution, a short interlude of 'respectability' and love, and a final return to prostitution.
The Circling song, closet to the heart of the author, is the story of Hamida and Hamido who are twins, grown from a single embryo inside one womb. Violently parted, they search the city in the darkening circles of a dream, only to find, lose and find each other, each time as if it were the first. Their journey - terrifying and exact - leads to an unbroken cycle of corruption and brutality.
With a precise and hypnotic intensity, Nasal El Saadawi pursues the conflicts of sex, class, gender and military violence deep into the psyche. Written in a cinematic form, reminiscent of magical realism, The Circling Song is her most original novel.