"Women Under the Veil" Author: [Egypt] Nawal Saadawi Publisher: Beijing United Publishing Company

Introduction · · · · · ·
“The truth frees me from fear of death or destruction.”

Egyptian feminist pioneer writer, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature many times.

Recommended by Margaret Atwood and Doris Lessing,

Four representative works of Nawal El Saadawi were officially introduced.

“Removing the veil from the hearts of Arab women”

It records the struggles and destinies, ideals and shattered dreams of women in that land.

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Editor's Recommendations

◎ This is the "wild and dangerous woman", Nawal El Saadawi, a famous Egyptian feminist writer and activist.

◆ Recommended by Doris Lessing and Margaret Atwood, and nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature many times;

◆ Known as the "Beauvoir of the Arab world", she said she was "more liberal than Beauvoir";

◆ She was circumcised at the age of 6, declared she would not marry at the age of 10, and ended her three marriages on her own initiative. She was over 70 years old when she ended her last marriage;

◆ As a doctor, she witnessed the physical and mental torture of countless women. She devoted her life to exposing and criticizing the harm done to women by circumcision, sexual violence, etc., and "unveiling the veil on the hearts of Arab women." Her strong thoughts and unremitting struggle led to her dismissal, her works being banned, and her name appearing on the "death list."

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◎ Writing is her weapon to defend women's rights and fight against injustice and oppression. It is more important to her than breathing and enables her to endure the pain of imprisonment.

◆ At the end of 1972, Saadawi began to study the mental illness of Egyptian women, and met Firdaus, the prototype of the protagonist of "Woman at Zero Point", who was imprisoned at the time. She shocked Saadawi, who praised her as "one of the few people who are willing to face death calmly for a principle";

◆ He wrote his memoirs in prison with a "stubby black eyebrow pencil" and "a small roll of torn toilet paper". "Even if they bury me in a grave, I will continue to write. If they take away my paper and pen, I will write on the wall, on the ground, on the sun and on the moon";

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◎ Listen to the fate of the voiceless, peel away the layers of hidden reality, and bluntly show the past and present experiences of generations of Arab women.

◆ The four works of "Women Under the Veil" can reflect the creative themes of Nawal El Saadawi's life. With frank and sharp words, varied styles and exquisite skills, she tells the stories of contemporary women who are trapped in poverty, trapped in marriages, blocked from their ideal paths, and still suffering from mental oppression and physical violations. Their pain, confusion and struggle transcend time and region, bringing shock and resonance to all those who truly respect individual survival and freedom:

☆ Her body is a commodity. If she loses her innocence, she will die.

☆ Men forcefully deceive women and then punish them for being deceived; they force them into depravity and then punish them for falling so low; they bind them in marriage and then punish them with lifelong menial work or verbal abuse and beatings.

☆ A woman's life is always miserable. However, a prostitute's life is a little better.

☆ This moment comes every day, and she never wins. If she can do it today, she can do it every day. If she can win once, this bad habit will be broken.

☆ How many years of my life passed before my body and my self truly belonged to me and I could control them as I pleased?

☆ After years of struggle, I have arrived at this fierce and primitive truth of life. They are not afraid of my knife, but of my truth. It makes me no longer afraid of death, life, hunger, nakedness or destruction.

☆ We perform the simple but dangerous duty of thinking and speaking, talking and writing with the simple words we were born with, not with cannons, rifles or bombs. Just words.

☆ Life is indeed difficult, but only those who are tougher than life can truly live.

☆ Men don’t understand the value of women. Only they themselves can determine their value.

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◎ Special binding: 130mm*185mm small format, each book is light and portable, and the whole is bound with a wide waistband made of translucent sulfuric acid paper. The silhouettes of the characters on the cover accurately outline the women in the story. Tearing off the waistband echoes the theme of "lifting the veil on women's hearts."

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Comment

★ Whether as a doctor or a writer, Saadawi has been fighting against injustice all her life. She reminds us that women's access to education stems from the efforts of our grandmothers and even great-grandmothers. - Doris Lessing

★ I think she has been under threat of death for a long time. When others choose to remain silent, Saadawi speaks out the unspeakable truth. - Margaret Atwood

★ A prolific creator, a defender of women's rights, and a challenger of patriarchy, Saadawi is undoubtedly the most outstanding and prolific Arabic female writer. -- Fedwa Marti-Douglas, writer and professor at Indiana University

★ This is an awe-inspiring and great work that reproduces a tragedy with restrained and reserved implicit statements. ——Female Book Review on God Dies on the Banks of the Nile

★ This novel forces us to delve into what is perhaps the worst story about women's oppression, but Saadawi also gives readers a certain courage and hope because she is one of the first people to tell this story to the world. -- Jacqueline Ross, a feminist scholar and writer, on "Zero Point Woman"

★ The author explores the inner world of a young woman who longs to find the meaning of life and existence, but finds herself in a Kafkaesque dilemma. —— Jane Priestley, professor at the University of Leeds, on "Searching"

★ Saadawi's skills are amazing. She tells a universal story with a song that has no beginning or end. ——Comment on "The Looping Song" by "Ordinary Woman" magazine

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Introduction

God Dies on the Nile

Saadawi's grandmother said that the village chief was a god and no one could punish him. Her parents gave her brother more freedom and food, saying that this was God's will. The men and women in her hometown inspired Saadawi to write "God Dies on the Nile".

Kafuerte is a beautiful village on the Nile River, but beneath the beautiful surface, the village chief and the captain of the guard are greedy for wealth, robbing and enslaving the women in the village, using their power and the people's beliefs to oppress them in various ways. All resistance seems to be in vain. Zakya is an ordinary girl who can only squat in front of the dusty door and quietly accept her fate. But when her nieces also become victims of the village chief, she chooses not to be manipulated anymore and stands up to resist.

"Zero Point Woman"

The novel is based on the true story of a female prisoner at Saadawi’s medical institute who was convicted of murdering her husband.

"Everyone must die. I would rather die for the crimes I committed than for any of the many crimes you have committed." Firdaus was forced into prostitution. After experiencing repeated betrayals and humiliations, she decided to raise the blade against the violence that deprived her of the right to live, love and true freedom, and murdered the pimp who tried to control her. On the eve of her execution, in the last moments of her life, this resolute and brave woman told the world about her life.

Searching

Fuada's ideal is to become a real chemical researcher, but she mechanically travels back and forth between home and the office of the Chemical Department every day, handling trivial and meaningless work step by step. The sudden disappearance of her lover and the death of her mother triggered her intense reflection on her various identities. She tried to find the value and meaning of her life, but she was repeatedly questioned and even violated by men in the name of helping her, and was eventually pushed to the brink of collapse.

"Loop Song"

"Her body is a commodity. If she loses her innocence, she will die." The twin brother and sister Hamido and Hamida are the two protagonists of the story. They were born almost at the same time in their mother's womb. Their names differ by only one letter, but their fates are completely different. The girl Hamida was raped for stealing sugar. The "loss of innocence" was regarded as a shame for the family. Her mother sent her on a train to escape the village to save her life. However, the brother Hamido, with a knife in his arms, boarded the train at the instigation of his father to fulfill the mission of "washing away the shame." The narrative technique of the novel is very charming. The author uses a "looping song" with no beginning and no end as an allegory to tell a story about gender that has nothing to do with region, is difficult to trace its beginning, and is difficult to escape.