Content Warning: This section includes descriptions of child sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape, physical violence, and domestic abuse.

The course of Firdaus’s life runs like a long-winding river, challenged constantly by obstacles that test its courage, power, and strength. Firdaus grew up in 20th-century Egypt during the final years of British rule and the political upheaval that followed. Egypt is still a largely patriarchal society, and Firdaus’s personal values of womanhood and autonomy clash with the ideals perpetuated by patriarchal ideals. Nawal El Saadawi was so deeply moved by Firdaus’s story that she felt the need to share it with the world because Firdaus’s story is one of mental and emotional triumph over the patriarchic bindings that attempt to hold her and all women like her back. As secularism rose in Egypt during this period, more and more women awoke to the injustices of religious dogma.

Firdaus’s childhood is fraught with abuse and neglect, and she’s expected to be subservient, innocent, and insignificant as a female. She has endured female genital mutilation, incestual molestation, and physical abuse. She comments on how indifferent her father was when one of her sisters died, and on how frequently he would beat her mother into submission.