Customer Reviews

God Dies by the Nile: Second Edition

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"God Dies by the Nile," a novel by Nawal El Saadawi, focuses on the Egyptian town of Kafr El Teen. As the story opens we meet Zakeya, an agricultural laborer who is working the soil by the Nile River. We soon meet her family of poor peasants, as well as the privileged ruling class of the village; the lives of these groups are intertwined in disturbing ways.

A note about the author tells that she was born in a village on the banks of the Nile and eventually became a doctor, and that her books have been banned. This book reminded me a lot of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the classic American novel of social protest. In "God Dies" Saadawi deals with socioeconomic oppression, the sexual exploitation of women, and the intermingling of religion and politics.

"God Dies" is full of fascinating characters. There is Metwalli, seen by some as a holy man and by others as an idiot; also memorable is Fatheya, the strong-willed wife of the leader of the village mosque. The interpersonal conflicts and relationships of the characters are very compelling, and are punctuated by some biting dialogue. Saadawi's vivid language has a powerful appeal to the senses; I could really imagine myself being immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells of this world.

At times the multiple storylines made the novel feel a bit disjointed, but ultimately Saadawi's craftsmanship gives the book a powerful unity and balance. This is a vivid and well-written portrait of human cruelty and corruption. As a companion text I recommend "The Villagers," by Jorge Icaza.

Nawal el Saadawi, God Dies by the Nile (Zed, 1974)

Nawal el Saadawi, Egyptian doctor, feminist, and activist, has written close to thirty books, spent time in prison for being a subversive, and for more than forty years has been a leader of progressive thinking in Egypt. So why is she almost unknown in America? Im not entirely sure anyone can answer that question completely. Better to just try and correct the problem.

God Dies by the Nile, originally published in Egypt in 1974, is the story of a family living across the street from the mayor of the peasant village of Kafr el Teen, along the banks of the Nile. We learn early on that the Mayor is a nasty fellow, and with his three cronies (the village doctor, the Captain of the Guard, and the head of the mosque), he controls all the power in the village. Needless to say, he uses this power for the most corrupt of ends.

Zakeya is the titular head of the family across the street. Four years ago, her son Galal went off to fight at Suez, and has never been heard from again. Her brother, a widower, and his two daughters, Nefissa and Zeinab, live with Zakeya. The four of them work in the fields, as does everyone else in the village, until a summons comes from the Mayor: if Nefissa will work in his house as a maid, he will pay the family an almost unimaginable sum per month. Nefissa goes. All this happens before the beginning of the story (but its better than doing the synopsis on the back of the Zed paperback, which is truly a synopsisright up to the final chapter, a spoiler extraordinaire). After Nefissa runs away, the Mayor becomes taken with Zeinab, and the whole painful cycle begins again.

God Dies by the Nile is worth reading to the American reader for the same reasons as most other African novels: to get a sense of how similar we are in our cultures despite the various differences in them. Apart from that, while the writing is a tad on the clunky side (this could easily be a problem of translation rather than the original work), the book, which clocks in at a slight 108 pages, is an easy and somewhat compelling read in the vein of classical metatragedy (meta- in that the agents of tragedy here are human, and thus the protagonists can do something about them). El Saadawis characters are wonderfully drawn, for the most part, and the differences in culture mean little when characters are drawn in this detail; you get a feel for the body language of the characters, and what it means, even if it is unfamiliar to you. In this is the books largest weakness; el Saadawi is so excellent at drawing these characters and showing us their feelings and motivations that when she reiterates them explicitly, shes redoing a job shes already done very well, and so the book tends to slow with repetition now and again. Still, that makes it no less pleasurable, if a story this tragic can be in any way pleasurable. ***

This is a beautifully written, and sensitively translated, portrait of the utter oppression and near-hopelessness of Egyptian peasant life in the mid-1970's when the book was first written. El Saadawi is a powerful voice for the Egyptian underclass, having grown up in a village along the Nile and risen to become a doctor. Her books have periodically been banned but she continues to write. Hers is a voice we should be aware of. A short book, with a compelling story, it is an 'easy' read. I took it along as holiday reading during my first visit to Egypt, and it definitely helped me to make some sense of what I was seeing as I cruised down the river.

It was...hmm, brutal. And angry. Beautifully written and profoundly depressing. And it exposed the immense power held by petty officials and their corruption and greed and insecurities. It exposed the horrifying lot of women whatever class they were born into. Worth reading.

All well and good, but an entire village void of anyone who can actually ask a rational question or grasp why things are the way they are much less struggle against that? A whole village full of people who cannot see beyond their plows? Not one person even vaguely awake and self-aware? It reminded me of Chekhov's stories of peasants...it reminded me of the dominant paradigm of poor people as stupid and ignorant, which ultimately leads to the idea that poverty is their fault.

Were it true, change would be impossible.