Monday February 15th at 7 p.m. we relaunched the Book Club at the House with a reading of “Zeina” a novel by Dr. Nawal El Saadawi. Originally written in Arabic,  it was first published in french to later on be published in its original language.

Zeina is the story of an “illegitimate” child who grows up to be an artist – however the novel is multi-layered covering many issues imbued from Egyptian society. It is the story of a neighborhood in Egypt, transitioning from kingdom to republic, and that delves into the fusion of contradicting ideologies.

The novel combines issues of  patriarchy, revolution, perversion. Its main themes fall under masculinity v/s femininity and poverty v/s wealth.

The book reading was stimulating and has brought up discussions about the phallus in El-Saadawi’s literature, patriarchy, family lineage, and physical abuse.

Our book club this month featured a rich selection of poetry readings, the coolest of which was the spoken word poetry of Suheir Hammad’s ZaatarDiva collection. Book clubbers read, listened to, and discussed different poems of resistance, identity politics, and resilience.

Our weekly book club kicked off this month with a reading from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own followed by poetry from Cherrie Moraga and readings from the anthology This is What Lesbian Looks Like. Many interesting discussions are coming out of these inspiring texts! Join us every Monday at 5.30pm in the Meem Library for a weekly discussion and reading of a feminist or queer text.