Four books by writers from Saudi Arabia, set there, that give a real sense of the place, starting with Girls of Riyadh and Throwing Sparks.
Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh, a novel about four affluent young women in the Saudi capital, is among the best-known books from Saudi Arabia. Writers there draw on very old forms: the celebrated pre-Islamic odes called the Mu'allaqat, and Nabati poetry, composed in the everyday Arabic of the peninsula's Bedouin. The novel is a younger tradition, and Abdo Khal's Throwing Sparks, a dark portrait of wealth and power in Jeddah, won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2010.
Yousef Al-Mohaimeed's Wolves of the Crescent Moon follows three outcasts struggling on the margins of Riyadh. Manal al-Sharif's memoir Daring to Drive recounts growing up in Mecca and Dhahran and leading the women's driving campaign. Much of this writing turns on the gap between Riyadh's wealth and the people living on its margins.
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Four affluent young women navigate love, class and social expectations in contemporary Riyadh, showing everyday life behind the city's conventions.
A Jeddah-set novel showing the corrupting reach of wealth and power, with a dark portrait of elite excess and its victims.
Three outcasts struggle on the margins of Riyadh, revealing hardships the city prefers not to see.
A memoir of growing up in Mecca and Dhahran and leading the women's driving campaign, illuminating religion, family and activism.
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