Four young girls from wealthy, upper-class Riyadh families are looking for Mister Right.
This is not merely a matter of the heart and of their hopeful dreams of happiness, it is a scary gamble which will shape their entire lives, because this is Saudi Arabia. Religion and tradition rule society, women may not leave the house unaccompanied or even drive a car, and the girls’ desperate ploys from within the tight confines of their golden cage are doomed from the beginning, unless they manage to pull off that rare feat and find a husband who cherishes and respects his wife. Sadeem, Lamees, Michelle and Gamrah try clandestine internet chats, intense romance via cell phone, traditional arranged marriage and true love. The Western reader will follow their tribulations, heartbreaks and setbacks with wide-eyed incredulity.
This book, written by Sani Raja abd Allah (Rajaa Alsanea), caused an instant sensation in Saudi Arabia and was widely and heatedly discussed, the topic thought daring and provocative. The young author herself has worked on the translation of her book into English, which necessitated a certain amount of re-writing and footnotes to make her story understandable for outsiders to her traditional Muslim culture. Ms. Abd Allah states she wants to show us how women in her home land are beginning to carve out their own way, while insisting they do not want the Western way, but find a way of their own, within their cultural and religious identity. To a Canadian reader this is a profoundly captivating, shocking, touching and (to me, at least) rather depressing book.
Girls of Riyadh offers an authentic glimpse into a world that, to us, is very alien, and a chance to understand somewhat better. Give it to your teenage daughters, to remind them how far we have come since the days of Miss Austen’s distant heroines on a rather similar quest.
A footnote of my own: The author, a practising dentist, lives in Chicago now. She has never received a cent of royalties on her book, which was a best-seller in the Arab world, but makes some money off it via her rights as a translator of her own work. She is working on a second novel. Good luck to her and her sisters.
