Zeina follows the lives of Zeina bint Zeinat, the biological daughter of Bodour, Bodour's other daughter Magheeda, Bodour's husband Zacharia, Bodour's cousin "the emir," and a whole cast of characters who appear, disappear, re-appear, die, live again, or are lost forever. At 19, Bodour becomes pregnant with a fellow protester, Nassim. He is killed shortly thereafter (don't worry, that's not a spoiler). Afraid of the scandal of having an illegitimate child, Bodour abandons her daughter, Zeina, on the street. Zeina grows up to become one of the foremost performers in Egypt, mesmerizing fans and critics alike - appearing and disappearing as a mirror by which the subjects of the book analyze their own successes and failures.
Really, though, this book is a glimpse into the mind of a woman who is dead while still alive. The narrative is disjointed and dream-like, returning over and over again to a few snippets of experience. It is unclear when in time certain passages occur, and often a 2-page passage of plot will end with the person waking up. It's a bit of a maddening read, but so lyrical - and so much like memory itself - that the recursiveness is an asset.
That's not to say that the book didn't have flaws. El Saadawi is definitely didactic. Just as there are snipets of experience that appear over and over, there are viewpoints that do as well. The senseless violence of men, the devaluation of women in religion (not just Islam), how men want to control women. It gets a little tiring. The men in the story (except for the few who die too early to become corrupted) rape anyone and everyone: children, their wives, sex workers, servants, and others' wives. Only in the last part of the book does the narrative go beyond the senseless violence men do to women, and on to the agency of women. Which is not to say that senseless violence by men is not worth writing about, but that as a reader I grew frustrated with the female characters' clouded minds.
Overall, though, a beautiful, confusing read.