"I sometimes wonder if a person can be born twice" ....a wonderful quote from page 19 that I think summarizes the main character's life throughout the book. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi is a sad story about a young woman, Firdaus, who survives a tumultuous childhood, an arranged marriage, and struggles to make her own way in life. From living with an abusive, selfish father during her to her last days in prison, El Saadawi paints such a vivid picture of Fridaus' life from beginning to end. Through all this, Firdaus has lived two different lives in this book, the first as a girl growing up with her parents and then being raised by her Uncle after their death. Her second life begins when she leaves her Uncle's house to save herself from an arranged marriage and yet returns realizing she is not prepared to handle life on her own.I think it's really important to begin this book by reading the Author's Preface to get a good understanding of this stories background. The most interesting part for me is the fact that it is based on El Saadawi's actual experience with a convicted criminal in a women's prison in Egypt. It makes me feel that much more connected to the story knowing that the details I am reading are pulled from someone's life. My one complaint is that in a novel of only 114 pages, there were times that I felt the progression of the story stalled too long and got lost in unnecessary details in the beginning. I didn't see the importance of some of her details from her school days and felt she should have spent more time discussing her family or future relationships. However, remembering that this is based on a true story, helped to keep me engaged.To me, the author's style of writing is reminiscent of poetry which is beautiful at times and yet frustrating in the way that she will allude to certain childhood memories, feelings or thoughts but never outright say what she is thinking or feeling. The writer's ambiguity at certain points was frustrating and left me with too many questions. I felt like this story could have been more developed and it left me wanting to know more about the main character and how she felt about each situation.What I found interesting was how often I noticed a repetitive tone throughout the story. Whether it's her describing her feeling of pleasure and pain at the same time, the familiar scenes of Firdaus listening to the creaking bed, or her running away with just a dress and a handbag of belongings. It's like Ground Hog Day with these events repeating over and over...Firdaus is abused, finds kindness, discovers her new protector is the same as all the others and then runs away at her first chance...repeat...This story was just so depressing for me...I felt as if I was going through each heart wrenching experience with her and wanted her to have any kind of success, happiness, or end to her constant struggle. Unfortunately, it came to a point that after everything she had been through, death was the only way for her to get peace. What's great about this story is El Saadawi's portrayal of the harsh reality of some Muslim women in Egypt. Just the idea that Firdaus can be beaten by her husband immediately walk the streets of Cairo, swollen and bloody, and not a single person care or take note is quite remarkable. I think that by presenting this novel the way the author did, with Firdaus telling her story as if purging her soul before death, causes her story to have more impact. I would absolutely recommend this book and wish the story lasted longer. I feel that I became so attached to Firdaus and couldn't stop rooting for her in the end.In light of the current events, which revealed to the oblivious west the extent of the corruption, unemployment and oppression in authoritarian Egypt which robbed people of their dignity, Nawal El Saadawi's work made the point clear in her novel of how this noxious social decay weighed down unbearably on the female half of the population. Through her original profession as a rural doctor, El Saadawi's Arab feminism philosophy began when she witnessed prostitution, honor killings, and sexual abuse - including the horrendous practice of female circumcision calculated to deprive women of ever experiencing sexual pleasure so to keep themselves 'pure' - stories that wound their way into her books. In this novel, the protagonist Firdaus, a poor village girl, was forced to choose between the 'proper' way to prostitute herself as a wife, condemned to a life of performing menial labors and services and getting beaten by whichever old man her relatives chose for her. Or make a living as an actual prostitute where she had a brief period of freedom from want and a choice on which clients to take, before she was terrorized once again by a local pimp who forced her to give him her profits or be sent to jail or killed by his circle of corruption extending into the police, the courts, and the government. What's especially sad is that Firdaus had a secondary school certificate that indicated some years of education of which she was especially proud of, with which she tried repeatedly to find a respectable job, only to be turned down, or to be tyrannized by superiors who used poor female employees as a cheap source of sexual favors and awarded them with meager pay raises or job security. The novella portrays these stark "choices" that constantly seek to undermine poor women's sense of dignity to the point of zero, and the grim consequences that await those who dare strike back.El Saadawi herself is a interesting and polarizing figure; her outspokenness earned her jail time under Sadat and criticism of Islam and veiling got her death warrants from clerics, which led to her moving to the US for a period (and taught at Duke!). All for, as she emphasized in the novel, for telling the ugly truths that people refused to see. And of course in January, this frail old lady was in the middle of Tahrir Square, spotted by NY Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. While the political reforms may have been over, it will be an arduous task to uproot the entrenched culture of socioeconomic injustice and misogyny.