Al-Sanousi's 2012 novel Saq al-Bambu (The Bamboo Stalk) follows the son of a Kuwaiti father and a Filipina maid, raised in Manila, who returns to Kuwait as a young man seeking the family that has refused to acknowledge him. The novel won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2013 and forced into Arabic literary discussion the question of the millions of South and Southeast Asian workers whose labour underwrites Gulf life.
Recurring themes
the Gulf migrant labour question
Kuwaiti identity and exclusion
intra-Arab racism
memory of Kuwait before 1990
Selected works
- 2010The Prisoner of Mirrors
- 2012The Bamboo Stalk
- 2015Mama Hissa's Mice
- 2018The Jewish Quarter