- Badriyyah al-Bishr (1967-, Saudi Arabia) – Gharamiyyāt Shāriʿ al-Aʿshā (‘Love stories on al-Asha Street’, 2013). Set in the Manfūha district in Riyadh in the 1970s, this novel depicts three women who settled in the Saudi capital in search of freedom: ʿAzīzah, who falls in love with an Egyptian man for his dialect; Waḍḥa, a bedouin woman who becomes prominent on the local women’s market; and ʿAṭwā, who changes her name to become an independent woman in Riyadh. ʿAzīzah, heroine of the novel, also follows the love stories of the neighborhood from her roof, and her observations shed light on the changes in Saudi society in the given period, such as increased conservatism and the influx of commercial goods like radio and television (reference).
- Umaymah al-Khamīs (1966-, Saudi Arabia) – al-Baḥriyyāt (2006, English trans. Sea-Wafted Women, 2019) and al-Wārifah (‘The leafy tree’, 2009).
Set during the oil boom in Saudi Arabia that took place between 1955 and the 1990s (see also S: Social Issues and Societal Change: Oil and the Gulf Region), al–Baḥriyyāt portrays three women, Riḥāb, Suʿād, and Bahījah, who travel to Riyadh from the Levant to settle in the city as wives and teachers, while they struggle to find their place in their new environment. As the women moved from a relatively open to a closed society, the novel reflects on the role of women in the Saudi Arabian capital (reference).
al-Wārifah portrays the doctor Jawharah who works in a hospital in the Ulaishah neighbourhood of Riyadh in the 1980s and 1990s (reference). The novel portrays Jawharah’s inner tensions between her desire to live the way she wants, and the social constrains that bind her. She is portrayed as a working woman, but also as she goes through a loveless marriage and a divorce, and, as such, reflects on love in a patriarchal society (reference). Like the previous novel, the story centers on female voices. In addition to Jawhara, there are her two sisters, Hind and Ruqqayah, and her mother, Haylah (reference) (also in F: Children and Family Life: Marriage: Divorce and Separation and O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Doctor’s Stories).
- Yūsuf al-Muḥaymīd (1964-, Saudi Arabia) – Fakhākh al-Rāʾiḥah (2003, English trans. Wolves of the Crescent Moon, 2007). This novel is made up of the three intertwined storylines of its main characters. The first is Ṭurād. Born a Bedouin, he has become fed up with his humiliating jobs in Riyadh. When he is at the bus station ready to leave the city, he finds an official file on Nāṣir, an illegitimate child who grew up in an orphanage whose story forms the second storyline. The third character is the Sudanese Tawfīq, who was captured and sold in Saudi Arabia as a slave. Having been raped and castrated, he eventually works for a rich family. The novel was banned in Saudi Arabia (also in S: Social Issues and Societal Change: The Marginalized).
- Ibrāhīm al-Nāṣir (1933 – 2013, Saudi Arabia) – Safīnat al-Mawtā (‘The ship of dead’, 1969) (reissued in 1989 as Safīnat al-Ḍayāʾ (‘The ship of loss’)). Main character, ʿĪsā, works in the hospital as assistant manager, though in his free time he reads and writes poetry. The novel shows Saudi Arabia’s changing society and developments through the story of the hospital and its employees, including that of his love interest, the nurse ʿAbīr, and the cleaners of the hospital who threaten a strike for an increased salary. The novel provides a vivid account of the old hospital, the only in Saudi Arabia at the time, but also life in the different quarters of Riyadh (reference) (also in O: Occupations, Professions and Hobbies: Doctor’s Stories).
Refrences:
- Fāyiz ʿAlām. 2016. “Riwāyah min al-Saʿudiyyah … Gharamiyyāt Shāriʿa al-Aʿshā.” www.raseef22.net, 31 May, 2016 https://raseef22.net/article/2402-رواية-من-السعودية-غراميات-شارع-الأعشى (last accessed 2 February, 2023)
- Amīrah Muḥārib al-ʿUtaybī. 2021. “Taʾwīliyah al-Ḥiss al-Unthawī fī al-Riwāyah al-Nisāʾiyah al-Saʿūdiyah: Riwāyāt Umayymah al-Khamīs Namūdhijan.” In Majallah Kuliyyah Dār al-ʿUlūm 38(136): 251-275, p. 257, 258, 271
- 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 May 4 2021) p. 79-81