"[B]eautiful... She writes about the city and sky above it, like a woman deeply in love with the physical world. 'The sun shone in Barcelona' she tells us. 'Everything blooms in Barcelona in the springtime: the eyes of kittens, the virgins of the east, migrating birds. The sky is transparent blue.' As for her depiction of Cairo, you feel as she describes it, 'the same heat from thousands of years ago. From the first Pharaoh to the last one.' You feel the life of this novel too, of 'The Novel, ' of all the great novels."

– Alan Cheuse

"[A] novel within a novel, which follows the life of a young female writer as her life intertwines with the lives of the famous writer Roustum, his wife Carmen, and poet called Miriam. In her tenth novel, El Saadawi gives the reader a deeply felt exploration of the nature of identity, fame, writing and freedom."

"With a unique approach, Nawal El Saadawi introduces us to the world of a budding young female writer 'In her search for words to put on paper, the "young woman' encounters many artistic people- writers, poets, freedom groups and more. Poverty, adulterous sex, forbidden love, scorn for religious strictures, dirt behind political maneuvering and mingling of the high and low social classes- all are covered here! Most of the people she encounters wish to influence her and impress upon her their own points of view of how to write and what it is to be a writer" Although profound is an often overused word, its use is completely appropriate to describe this book. The story covers many touchy subjects that are taboo in the Muslim world. Reading this book makes you think, makes you question the traditions and lets you see some of the turmoil of what it is like to be a writer under such oppressed conditions." -

– Rhonda Esakov