Saudi Arabia remained an enigma for me, like a blank on the world map. In 1993, I made a long trip to Asia, from Yemen to Hong Kong, but being neither a pilgrim nor a businessman, I was unable to obtain a Saudi visa and had to resign myself to flying between Sana’a and Amman.
So, this spring I welcomed the opportunity of a professional trip to Riyadh. Although most of my time was taken up with meetings and work, I was able to discover certain aspects of the Saudi capital. I visited Diriyah and the At-Turaif fortress, the first seat of government of the Saudi monarchy. I walked around in the evening, when the dry heat had become bearable, and wandered through the narrow streets of this mud-brick citadel, curious to learn more about the country’s history and culture. Finally, on my last evening, I made my way to the historic Al Murabba district, which houses the royal palaces and the national museum in the center of Riyadh. In the squares and gardens, families were happy to be out in the relative cool of the evening: their children were playing ball or learning to ride their bikes.
I also read the novel “Girls of Riyadh” by Rajaa Alsanea. This book, very popular in the Arab world, caused quite a stir. Described a little too quickly as the Saudi version of “Sex in the City”, it was published in Beirut, stirred up controversy in the Kingdom where it circulated first under the table or in pirate editions before being accepted in 2008. For Western readers, it’s hard to understand what could have caused such a scandal in this funny novel, which offers a tender yet biting glimpse into the love lives of four young women from Riyadh who met on university benches and are now embarking on the perilous path, between passion and tradition, that could lead them to marriage, if not love.
Every Friday, a young woman sends an e-mail to a large audience, recounting the hopes and setbacks of four of her friends from the “velvet class” of Saudi society. Sadeem thinks she has found the perfect fiancé, but after giving in to his insistence and offering herself to him before the wedding, she is rejected as impure. She decides to go and work in London to get away from it all. Gamrah, after an arranged marriage, follows her husband to Chicago where he studies. She finds herself alone in a city she knows nothing about, only to realize that her husband has reunited with a Japanese lover. She must return to Riyadh alone, divorced and pregnant. Michelle, whose mother is American, will never be accepted by the family of the man she loves, for fear that she is too “Western”. She moves to Dubai to develop her career. Lamees, a medical student, seems to be the wisest, until she falls in love with a Shiite, which her Sunni family will find hard to accept.
I read this novel with pleasure, curiosity and no doubt, a touch of compassion for Sadeem, Gamrah, Michelle and Lamees. Of course, their lives are more than comfortable. Sure, their love affairs are sometimes naive. But I’ve never been tempted to say “poor little rich girls”. Finding love is not easy anywhere but seems particularly hazardous in this Saudi society where tradition and modernity sometimes struggle to live in harmony.
