- Ziyād ʿAbd Allāh (1975-, Syria) – Barr Dubay (‘Dubai bar’, 2008). This novel reflects on the changes that the city of Dubai went through in its process towards modernization and the effect this has on its inhabitants, especially migrant workers. The novel follows several characters and sheds light on their living and work conditions (reference). An example is Yūsuf, who faced many difficulties in his career as he climbed up from being a restaurant guard, to taking clients’ orders. The novel is a panorama of the multicultural and cosmopolitan city of Dubai and its different socio-economic levels (also in C: Cities: United Arab Emirates: Dubai).
- Muḥammad al-Bisāṭī (1937 – 2012, Egypt) – Duqq al-Ṭabūl (2006, English trans. Drumbeat, 2010) depicts a soccer team in an unnamed country resembling the Gulf region that qualifies for the World Cup. The country’s monarch leader requires each citizen to go to France to support the team. The many foreign workers remain alone and are suddenly free to take over control which leads to a complete turnover of power in the country where they have lacked so many human rights. The novel is narrated by a taxi-driver (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Sports).
- Rashīd al-Ḍaʿīf (1945-, Lebanon) – Hirrah Sīkīrīdah (‘Sikirida’s Cat’, 2014). Set during the Lebanese Civil War (see 1975 – 1988 Lebanese Civil War) this novel tells the out-of-wedlock love story between the paralyzed Amal and the person who shuttles her to school, the mixed Lebanese-Ethiopian Radwān. The novel also describes the difficulties Sīkīrīdah, Radwān’s Ethiopian mother, faces while working as a maid (see for more information in D: Disabilities, Illness, and Disorders: Physical Disabilities: Paralysis).
- Ṭayibah al-Ibrāhīm (1945 – 2011, Kuwait) – al-Insān al-Mutʿaddad (‘The multiple person’, 1990). This novel tells the story of ʿAlī, who is the clone-son of the wealthy Kuwaiti man ʿĀdil. The story is narrated by Amal who manages a home for orphans where she collects testimonies and observations of the story of ʿAlī, who will eventually become her husband. She describes that ʿAlī, being only a partially successful clone, has no legal rights and is denied by ʿĀdil, who only wanted him to be a spare body for himself to use (reference). The novel can be read as a critique of the legal non-status of foreign workers in Kuwait (also in S: Speculative Fiction: Science Fiction: On Earth).
- ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Muhannā (1950-, Saudi Arabia) – Al-Khādimatān wa al-Ustādh (‘The two servants and the teacher’, 1988). This novel is set in Riyadh between 1971 and 1985 and depicts the story of the history teacher Hishām, who lives in his father’s house. Two servants serve in the house: Bathaya from Thailand, who is later fired but continues to work in another house in Riyadh, and Bihar from Sri Lanka. Hishām falls in love with this latter but faces difficulties in marrying her due to the community and tradition (reference). They do eventually get married, but what Hishām doesn’t know is that she has another husband in Sri Lanka.
- Ḥāmid al-Nāẓīr (1975-, Sudan) – Farīj al-Murar (‘Freij Murur’, 2014). This novel portrays the lives of several Ethiopian women who came to Dubai in search for a better life. While many first turn to housework, they soon leave the harshness of this work for that of the cafes and restaurants on the lively Freij Murur square in Dubai. The novel shows the illegal underworld of the city, as well as the difficult conditions of the guestworkers, their reasons for migrating, their difficult journey from Ethiopia, and the questions of identity that their living in the UAE poses (reference) (also in C: Cities: United Arab Emirates: Dubai).
- Saʿūd al-Sanʿūsī (1981-, Kuwait) – Sāq al-Bāmbū (2012, English trans. The Bamboo Stalk, 2015). This novel, which won the International Prize for Arabic Literature in 2013, talks about the Philippian Jūzāfīn who moves to Kuwait to work as a maid and falls in love with the intellectual Rashīd. But their romantic relationship ends when Rashīd sends the pregnant Jūzāfīn back to the Philippines where she gives birth to ʿĪsā. Their son grows up in Manilla, but when he turns 18, he travels to Kuwait, only to end up disillusioned when he is not accepted the way he imagined he would be (reference) (also in W: Outside the Arab world: Asia and L: Love, Lust and Relationships: Inter-religious and ethnic relationships: Between Arabs and Asians).
Refrences:
In order of appearance
- Nājiḥ Ḥassan. 2008. “Riwāyah ‘Barr Dubay’… al-Baḥth ʿamā Warāʾ al-Thawrah.” www.alrai.com, 23 December 2008 https://alrai.com/article/312225.html (last accessed 12 February, 2023)
- Alon K. Raab. 2017. “Sport in the Middle East” in The Oxford Handbook of Sports History, eds. Robert Edelman and Wayne Wilson, Oxford University Press: Oxford: 287-300, p. 296
- Ian Campbell. 2018. Arabic Science Fiction. Palgrave MacMillan: London, p. 286
- Sultan S.M. Al-Qahtani. 1994.The novel in Saudi Arabia: emergence and development 1930-1989: an historical and critical study. (doctoral dissertation University of Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom) Retrieved from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8131/ (last accessed 4 May 2021) p. 178
- Fāyiz ʿAlām. 2016. “Murājiʿah li-Riwāyah ‘Farīj al-Murar’”, www.raseef22.net, 27 May 2016 https://raseef22.net/article/10689-book-review-hamed-al-nather (last accessed 22 July 2021)
- al-Kabīr al-Dādīsī. 2018. Masārāt al-riwāyah al-ʿarabiyyah al-muʿāṣirah, Muʾassah al-raḥāb al-ḥadīthah: Bayrūt, p. 156-7