In "Diary of a Child Called Souad," El Saadwi gives us a young female protagonist whose spirit longs for freedom from the restraints in her world that she does not understand. Through Souad's eyes, we see the oppression of women within a household, as we witness her grandfather's fierce dominance over her family and her grandmother's and aunt's unbearable silence. With Souad's story, El Saadwi paints a precise, tragic portrait of the personal--yet universal--tragedy experienced by an entire society of Egyptian girls.