Rajaa al-Sanea, the young Saudi writer of the highly debated book Girls of Riyadh, is today a practicing dentist. She is weary of labeling her book a feminist or controversial work and does not think people in Saudi Arabia have reason to revolt the same way people in neighboring countries do. The book was first published in Lebanon in 2005 and in English in 2007 and was long-listed for the Dublin Literary Award in 2009. The novel was banned outright by Saudi courts because it “incited vices” and subverted the foundations of Saudi literary tradition. Girls of Riyadh tells the story of a young woman who relates her girlfriends’ stories via e-mail messages. We read about Qamarah, a divorcee, and Sadeem, whose fiance abandons her after an intimate night. The novel was banned for a long time in Saudi Arabia and was translated to several languages other than Arabic. Al-Sanea had always wanted to become a writer, but she grew up in a family of physicians and was always concerned that her passion for literature might hinder her medical career. Still, she does not regret her absence from the literary scene, especially given the uproar that her novel sparked. She traveled to the US to escape the fuss surrounding Girls of Riyadh, enrolled in dentistry school and published a number of medical research papers, which she calls a very different type of writing.
