$34.49
Author: Saadawi Nawal El
Brand: Zed Books
Edition: 3
Number Of Pages: 496
Details: Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Hidden Face of Eve
Women in the Arab World
By Nawal El Saadawi, Sherif Hetata Zed Books LtdCopyright © 2007 Nawal El Saadawi
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78360-747-1
Contents
Foreword by Ronak Husni,
Preface to the English Edition,
INTRODUCTION,
PART I THE MUTILATED HALF,
1 The Question that No One Would Answer,
2 Sexual Aggression against the Female Child,
3 The Grandfather with Bad Manners,
4 The Injustice of Justice,
5 The Very Fine Membrane Called ‘Honour’,
6 Circumcision of Girls,
7 Obscurantism and Contradiction,
8 The Illegitimate Child and the Prostitute,
9 Abortion and Fertility,
10 Distorted Notions about Femininity, Beauty and Love,
PART II WOMEN IN HISTORY,
11 The Thirteenth Rib of Adam,
12 Man the God, Woman the Sinful,
13 Woman at the Time of the Pharaohs,
14 Liberty to the Slave, But Not for the Woman,
PART III THE ARAB WOMAN,
15 The Role of Women in Arab History,
16 Love and Sex in the Life of the Arab,
17 The Heroine in Arab Literature,
PART IV BREAKING THROUGH,
18 Arab Pioneers of Women’s Liberation,
19 Work and Women,
20 Marriage and Divorce,
An Afterword,
Notes,
CHAPTER 1
THE QUESTION THAT NO ONE WOULD ANSWER
I was six years old that night when I lay in my bed, warm and peaceful in that pleasurable state which lies halfway between wakefulness and sleep, with the rosy dreams of childhood flitting by, like gentle fairies in quick succession. I felt something move under the blankets, something like a huge hand, cold and rough, fumbling over my body, as though looking for something. Almost simultaneously another hand, as cold and as rough and as big as the first one, was clapped over my mouth, to prevent me from screaming.
They carried me to the bathroom. I do not know how many of them there were, nor do I remember their faces, or whether they were men or women. The world to me seemed enveloped in a dark fog which prevented me from seeing. Or perhaps they put some kind of a cover over my eyes. All I remember is that I was frightened and that there were many of them, and that something like an iron grasp caught hold of my hand and my arms and my thighs, so that I became unable to resist or even to move. I also remember the icy touch of the bathroom tiles under my naked body, and unknown voices and humming sounds interrupted now and again by a rasping metallic sound which reminded me of the butcher when he used to sharpen his knife before slaughtering a sheep for Eid.
My blood was frozen in my veins. It looked to me as though some thieves had broken into my room and kidnapped me from my bed. They were getting ready to cut my throat which was always what happened with disobedient girls like myself in the stories that my old rural grandmother was so fond of telling me.
I strained my ears trying to catch the rasp of the metallic sound. The moment it ceased, it was as though my heart stopped beating with it. I was unable to see, and somehow my breathing seemed also to have stopped. Yet I imagined the thing that was making the rasping sound coming closer and closer to me. Somehow it was not approaching my neck as I had expected but another part of my body. Somewhere below my belly, as though seeking something buried between my thighs. At that very moment I realized that my thighs had been pulled wide apart, and that each of my lower limbs was being held as far away from the other as possible, gripped by steel fingers that never relinquished their pressure. I felt that the rasping knife or blade was heading straight down towards my throat. Then suddenly the sharp metallic edge seemed to drop between my thighs and there cut off a piece of flesh from my body.
I screamed with pain despite the tight hand held over my mouth, for the pain was not just a pain, it was like a searing flame that went through my whole body. After a few moments, I saw a red pool of blood around my hips.
I did not know what they had cut off from my body, and I did not try to fi
Release Date: 15-02-2016
Package Dimensions: 40x202x600
