Reading list · 6 titles

New Saudi & Gulf Voices

Six books from the rising Gulf novelistic tradition.

For most of the twentieth century, the Gulf was a peripheral region in the modern Arabic novel — Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria dominated. That has changed sharply in the last twenty years. The list below is six entry points to the new Gulf fiction.

01

Celestial Bodies

Jokha Alharthi

Oman; the first Arabic novel to win the International Booker.

02

Bitter Orange Tree

Jokha Alharthi

Alharthi's quieter follow-up; an Omani student in Britain mourning her grandmother.

03

The Bamboo Stalk

Saud Al-Sanousi

Kuwait; IPAF 2013. The son of a Filipina maid returns to the family that won't acknowledge him.

04

The Dove's Necklace

Raja Alem

Saudi Arabia; IPAF 2011. A murder mystery in the alleys of Mecca.

05

Cities of Salt

Abdul Rahman Munif

Saudi-Iraqi; the foundational novel of the Arabian oil encounter.

06

The Bleeding of the Stone

Ibrahim al-Koni

Libya; one of the great Saharan novels of any tradition.