RAJAA ALSANEA

In her debut novel Rajaa Alsanea reveals the social, romantic, and sexual tribulations of four young women from the elite classes of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Originally released in Arabic in 2005, it was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia because of the controversial and inflammatory content, while black-market copies of the novel were widely circulated...

Gamrah's faith in her new husband is not exactly returned... Sadeem is a little too willing to please her fiancé... Michelle is half-American and the wrong class for her boyfriend's family... While Lamees works hard with little time for love. The girls of Riyadh are young, attractive and living by Saudi Arabia's strict cultural traditions. Well, not quite. In-between sneaking out behind their parents' backs, dating, shopping, watching American TV and having fun, they're still trying to be good little Muslim girls. That is, pleasing their families and their men.

En su debut literario, Rajaa Alsanea habla de aquelo sobre lo que en su entorno debería guardarse silencio: cuatro chicas de Riad, Arabia Saudí, jóvenes que desean vivir y amar pero que no pueden hacerlo porque la tradicion no preve felicidad alguna para la mujer. A pesar de ello, Sadim, Karma, Michelle y lamis intentan alcanzarla, cada una a su modo, y el resultado es una tragicomedia que emociona, conmueve y hechiza.

Sacleem could tell right away that Waleed was taken with her pretty looks, the way he stared at her made that clear enough. Even though she had barely lifted her head to look at him when she first walked in, she had seen him studying her figure, which nearly made her trip over her own feet. But as they talked, Sadeem gradually gained control of her nervousness and, with his help, conquered her shyness. He asked her about her studies, her major at the university, her future plans, and what she liked to do In her free time—all on his way to arriving in that prohibited region of questioning, the one question everyone of us —girls- fears and consider rude to be asked in a shoufah: Do you know how to cook?

Le livre choc qui a secoué le monde arabe enfin en France. Publié au Liban en 2005, ce livre a d''abord circulé sous le manteau en Arabie Saoudite. Pour la première fois, une romancière aborde le suj

The girls of Riyadh are young, attractive and living by Saudi Arabias strict cultural traditions. In-between sneaking out behind their parents backs, dating, watching American TV and having fun, theyre still trying to be good little Muslim girls. That is, pleasing their families. But can you be a twenty-first century girl and a Saudi girl?

Saudi Arabia - where marriages are arranged and there are no cinemas or parties to go to, where social life consists of trying to keep girls and boys apart rather than put them together. But as Rajaa Alsanea reveals in this absorbing novel, thats not the whole story: determination, mobile phones and the internet have made life easier for young Saudis, and the four girls in this novel are all finding romance even though mostly it goes badly wrong. Girls of Riyadh captures the trials and tribulations of a middle-class society quite unlike our own and blows the lid off all our preconceptions of Arab life.

Four women navigate the narrow straits between love, desire and Islamic tradition. Every week after Friday prayers, an email circulates among a group of subscribers to an online network. This book presents the cultural conflicts that underscore the difficulties of being an educated female growing up in a culture rooted to an ancient way of life.