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مقابلة لـ : Harry de
Quetteville
Its heroines are four
well-to-do girls about town and its subject their hot
gossip on love and lust, men and money. But the setting
for this taboo-breaking, best-selling tale of sex and
the city is not New York. It is Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Together, Lamees, Sadeem, Qamrah and Mashael are "The
Girls of Riyadh" - the title for a tell-all novel set in
the Islamic world's most conservative society, where the
book is causing both sensation and scandal.
The book's Saudi author, Rajaa al Sanie, is just 24. But
in the few months since her novel was published in the
Lebanese capital Beirut, it has been banned in her own
country and she has been propelled from unknown dental
student to celebrity author in the eye of a moral storm.
In the kingdom where women are banned from driving, and
alcohol is forbidden, the behind-the-wheel exploits of
her Dom Perignon quaffing heroines have not been
"approved" for publication by the Ministry of
Information.
The censor's stance, however, has made the book much
sought after - black market editions are selling for up
to 10 times their cover price of $10.
"It's very expensive on the black market," said Ms Al
Sanie in an interview given from Riyadh.
"Some people are smuggling it in from other Arab
countries, and some have even copied the whole thing out
and are sending it by e-mail."
Such is demand that The Girls of Riyadh has become the
number one best-seller in the Arab world. "We are on our
fourth print run," said its publisher, Dina Dalli, in
Beirut. "No one has spoken about the private lives of
women in Saudi like this. It's been a taboo subject."
Its pages, woven together in the form of weekly e-mail
messages about the lives of the book's heroines, do not
feature the no-holds barred sex scenes that made the
American television series Sex and the City famous.
But with storylines featuring gay teenagers, lesbians,
cross-dressing, boozy weddings, affairs and religion, it
leaves few Saudi sensibilities unshaken.
"It shines a light on subjects that people do not openly
discuss in Saudi Arabia," Ms al Sanie told the Sunday
Telegraph. "Its about the secrets of Saudi society and
its contradictions.
"In the West, people just know about the conservative
Saudi Arabia, where women are covered from head-to-toe
and men have beards. But you don't know about the more
relaxed Saudi."
Ms al Sanie, who wears a headscarf, said the book was
written partly to communicate what "life is really like
here" to a sceptical Western world, which still views
Saudi Arabia primarily as the home of Osama bin Laden
and the bombers behind the September 11 attacks.
In the book, the four "Girls of Riyadh" suffer very
different fates. Sadeem's sexual boldness shocks her new
husband Walid, who divorces her. Qamrah leaves Saudi for
Los Angeles with her new husband Rashid, where she
discovers that he is in love with a Japanese woman.
Their marriage ends in divorce, and a pregnant Qamrah is
left disgraced. Mashael, who in one storyline dresses up
as a man, is rejected by her true love's family because
her mother is not Saudi. Only Lamees and her husband
Nizar find happiness.
It was over her six years of medical studies that Ms al
Sanie wrote the book. "It is imaginary but it is based
on true things that happen here," she said.
In her own life, however, there is more now than simply
the quest of finding a suitable man to deal with.
"I'm trying to continue with my dentistry," she said.
"But it's busy at the moment with the book. I am working
on the English translation and adapting it for a
television series."
Despite the controversy over her book, Ms al Sanie said
her family had been supportive of her literary ambitions
and she had not encountered any problems with Saudi
Arabia's religious police.
But her brother, Ahmad, feared that she might pay the
price later. "She's not married yet," he said, "and
society doesn't forgive or forget."
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