This week at Bookstr, we are taking a trip to the United Arab Emirates to check out some of the best authors to come from the nation. The UAE is slightly larger than the size the size of South Carolina and is located in the Middle East, bordering the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. The nation has its own rich literary history and triumphs most of us in the West may not be familiar with, so we want to take a second and explore some authors and work to come from the UAE. So sit back, relax, and read on to find the best recommendations from Emirati authors.
Maha Gargash
Maha Gargash is a producer and director best known for her 20-year radio and TV production career. She graduated with a degree in radio/TV at George Washington University while studying communications. After she returned home to Dubai post-grad, Gargash worked for Dubai Radio and Television as a producer. Her work with art, nature, and culture gave her a myriad of experiences with unique communities around the world. Her documentaries focus on Emirati culture, a topic that also fuels her debut novel, The Sand Fish.
The Sand Fish is a historical novel set in the 1950s in the United Arab Emirates. We follow Noora, a 17-year-old girl living with her brother in poverty in the mountains. When her brother marries her off to a pearl merchant, she is forced to move away from the only home she has ever known. She soon discovers her role in her new husband’s life — a man who is older than her father — as his other three wives have been unable to bear children, and Noora is the solution. She must navigate her new life, strife with new social constraints that didn’t exist back home in the mountains.
“Gargash weaves an enticing tale of a fiery, independent woman. . . . Intimate, well-paced prose. . . . An exciting, passion-filled read that illuminates an intriguing culture through the eyes and experience of a fiesty heroine.”
—Publishers Weekly
Deepak Unnikrishnan
Deepak Unnikrishnan hails from Abu Dhabi but now resides in the States, having lived in Chicago, Brooklyn, and Teaneck, New Jersey. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute Chicago and has taught there and at NYU. Temporary People is his first book.
Temporary People is a collection of 28 short stories chronicling the stories of foreign nationals in the United Arab Emirates whose stories are often overlooked. Unnikrishnan explores the complex web of the labor force, spanning from construction workers to rebel communities in the desert, forcing us to ask who must pay the price for global progress. Dive into their stories, we uncover the histories and mysteries of the migrant works of the United Arab Emirates as Unnikrishnan unpacks the crisis in the Gulf for the first time in fiction.
“…The author’s crisp, imaginative prose packs a punch, and his whimsical depiction of characters who oscillate between two lands on either side of the Arabian Sea unspools the kind of immigrant narratives that are rarely told. An enchanting, unparalleled anthem of displacement and repatriation.”
–Kirkus Starred Review
Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing in 2016 and labeled Best Books of 2017: Booklist, Kirkus, San Francisco Chronicle.
Samama Reza
Samama Reza is a Bangladeshi writer who was raised in Dubai and is currently there with her family and 11 cats. She’s been an avid reader since she was little; her mother would read her folktales. Anti-Romantic is her debut novel.
Two best friends, Sara and Zainab, both want to find love, but if only things were that simple. Sara can’t wait to fall in love, but it’s easier said than done until she stumbles across a magical ring that can compel people to do what she wants. Meanwhile, Zainab’s heart is already reserved for Fawad, whom she’s loved forever. But for some reason, her father doesn’t approve of Fawad. Can she figure out how to confess her feelings without hurting her family?
“Samama Reza grew up reading western-centric novels and was inspired to write her debut after feeling the need to see POC characters and different settings represented in books.”
–Lovin Dubai
For those looking to diversify their reading habits, I hope these recommendations from across the board will help you discover a new favorite international author or read. The AUE is filled to the brim with amazing stories and even better writers, which have often been overlooked in Western media, so I urge everyone to check these out.
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