Girls of Riyadh
Encyclopedia
Girls of Riyadh, or Banat al-Riyadh, is a novel by Rajaa Alsanea. The book, written in the form of e-mails, recounts the personal lives of four young Saudi girls, Lamees, Michelle (half Saudi, half American), Gamrah, and Sadeem.
Girls of Riyadh tells the story of four college-age high class friends in Saudi Arabia, girls looking for love but stymied by a system that allows them only limited freedoms and has very specific expectations and demands. There's little contact between men and women—especially single teens and adults—but modern technology has changed that a bit (leading to young men trying everything to get women to take down their cellphone numbers). The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find. Sex is described in this novel, and how men ignore women if they give themselves up before marriage.
due to controversial and inflammatory content. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and Girls of Riyadh has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East. As of January 2008, English copies of Girls of Riyadh are openly available at major bookstores in Saudi Arabia
. The book, published by Penguin Books
, is available in the English translation, but has some changes due to difficulties of re-creating the effect of using different dialects of Arabic.
The book is widely distributed, being sold in stores from U.S. to Europe.
The English translator, Marilyn Booth
, expressed dissatisfaction with the end result of the translation project. According to Booth, the publishing house and author interfered with her initial translation to the detriment of the final text.
Plot summary
The novel describes the relationship between men and women in the conservative Saudi-Arabian Islamic culture.Girls of Riyadh tells the story of four college-age high class friends in Saudi Arabia, girls looking for love but stymied by a system that allows them only limited freedoms and has very specific expectations and demands. There's little contact between men and women—especially single teens and adults—but modern technology has changed that a bit (leading to young men trying everything to get women to take down their cellphone numbers). The Internet is also a new medium that can't contain women and their thoughts like the old system could, and the anonymous narrator of the novel takes advantage of that: she presents her stories in the form of e-mails that she sends out weekly to any Saudi address she can find. Sex is described in this novel, and how men ignore women if they give themselves up before marriage.
Controversy
Originally released in Arabic in 2005, Girls of Riyadh was immediately banned in Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
due to controversial and inflammatory content. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and Girls of Riyadh has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East. As of January 2008, English copies of Girls of Riyadh are openly available at major bookstores in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
. The book, published by Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
, is available in the English translation, but has some changes due to difficulties of re-creating the effect of using different dialects of Arabic.
The book is widely distributed, being sold in stores from U.S. to Europe.
The English translator, Marilyn Booth
Marilyn Booth
-Biography:Booth graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University in 1978, and was the first female winner of the Wendell Scholarship. She obtained a D.Phil. in Arabic literature and Middle Eastern history from St Antony's College, Oxford in 1985. She received a Marshall Fellowship for her...
, expressed dissatisfaction with the end result of the translation project. According to Booth, the publishing house and author interfered with her initial translation to the detriment of the final text.