Three books that put you in Yemen. One, The Hostage, is by a writer from Yemen and set there. The other two are wider picks: books by long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well.
Very little fiction from Yemen has been translated into English, and Zayd Mutee' Dammaj's The Hostage is one of the few Yemeni novels readers can find. Written in Arabic, it is set in the 1940s under Imam Yahya and shows highland Yemen through a boy held hostage by the ruler. Much of what else is available in English was written by travellers, scholars and long-term residents, so the country is often seen through outsiders' eyes. Their pages return again and again to the closed highlands, the tribal north and the former socialist south.
Tim Mackintosh-Smith, a British writer who has lived in Sanaa for decades, wrote Yemen: Travels in Dictionary Land, a witty journey steeped in language and history. Freya Stark's The Southern Gates of Arabia describes a 1930s journey through the Hadhramaut's wadis and mud-brick towns.
Set under Imam Yahya's rule in the 1940s, it shows highland Yemen through a boy held hostage by the ruler.
By long-time residents and outsiders who know the place well, or folk tales, poetry and history with a strong feel for Yemen.
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A witty journey through highland Yemen, Sanaa and the Tihama, steeped in language, history and everyday life.
Follows Adela Damari, born into a Jewish community in 1920s–40s Yemen, showing henna rituals, marriage customs, and the Operation Magic Carpet exodus.
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