A seemingly kind named Bayoumi takes her in and treats her well for several months. Sheikh Mahmoud routinely beats and rapes Firdaus, and she learns to withdraw from herself, mentally disassociating from her own body to endure the abuse.įirdaus runs to her uncle for shelter, but he is unsympathetic, so she runs away again. Before the wedding, Firdaus briefly tries to run away, but realizes that the world is too frightening for her as a woman. Instead, at his wife’s suggestion, he marries Firdaus to Sheikh Mahmoud, a wretched old man who is over 60 years old, while Firdaus is only 18. Firdaus expects that Miss Iqbal feels it too, but her teacher never recognizes it or pays Firdaus special attention, which disappoints Firdaus.Īlthough Firdaus graduates secondary school as one of the top students in the country, her uncle refuses to send her to university, since his niece studying alongside young men would reflect poorly on him as a public figure. One night, her teacher Miss Iqbal gives her comfort, and as Firdaus holds her hand she feels a muted stir of sexual pleasure, though she does not understand what this feeling means. Firdaus thrives here as well, though her painful childhood troubles her. However, after Firdaus marries an upper-class wife he becomes cool and distant, and abandons Firdaus to a secondary boarding school. She enjoys her life with him and excels as a student. When Firdaus’s parents die, her uncle takes her with him to Cairo and enrolls her in school. Firdaus’s uncle routinely sexually abuses her, but she still likes being with him because he teaches her to read and write. Firdaus has little memory of her mother, though she knows that her mother had her circumcised when she was still too young to understand what it meant-though not before her first sexual experience with a young boy named Mohammadain.
Her father is terribly abusive and deceitful, though every week at the mosque he pretends to be religiously devout.
Firdaus narrates her life story.įirdaus spends her early childhood in a rural village.
Egyptian psychiatrist Nawal El Saadawi visits a woman named Firdaus in Qanatir Prison, where she is about to be executed for murder.
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