Between ‘Awra and Arab Literary Feminism

The literary fiction of the Egyptian author, feminist activist and medical practitioner Nawal El Saadawi has incited both acclaim and controversy in the Arab world for its strident portrayals of female sexuality. Among her works, the semi-autobiographical novel Woman at Point Zero (2007) has assumed a particular renown. The text was initially banned from publication in Cairo for its extensive and condemnatory portrayal of the forms of sexual abuse suffered by women within the home, the family and patriarchal Egyptian society at large. ¹ The novel, narrated from the dual perspectives of Firdaus, a prostitute awaiting the death sentence for the killing of her pimp, and her unnamed female psychiatrist, mirrors closely El Saadawi’s own interview that she conducted with a woman in Qanatir prison while working in a similar role ( El Saadawi 2007: ix). The narrative traces Firdaus’s fate back through a series of social landscapes usually hidden from public view, each of which present their own forms of oppression, sexual abuse and violence. Yet Firdaus’s narrative, and indeed her identity as both criminal and victim, retain levels of ambiguity that pose difficult questions about the nature of sexual violence and its recognition within both Egyptian society and the Arab world more broadly. By turning to the question of sexual violence in Woman at Point Zero, the following discussion seeks to explore the difficulties faced by El Saadawi in the portrayal of these socially and discursively ambiguous crimes, while foregrounding the broader representational crisis surrounding sexual violence in Arab feminist and literary discourse, in which El Saadawi occupies a complex and indeed somewhat anomalous position.