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PARIS LONDON NEW YORK MIAMI KUALA LUMPUR DUBAI ROME GENEVA LOS ANGELES CAIRO
'Girls of Riyadh' an expose of life behind the veil, can be purchased at www. Amazon.co.uk/books
Interview by Marie Claire Magazine
Rajaa Alsanea, the author of Girls of Riyadh, speaks out
It's not exactly Sex and the City, but in Saudi terms, Rajaa Alsanea debut novel, The Girls of Riyadh, is shocking. Originally published in 2005, it traces the lives of four privileged young women, desperately looking for love and creating chaos as they tiptoe around Saudi Arabia's stringent moral codes.
The day it was published, The Girls of Riyadh was blacklisted and withdrawn from bookshops. Would-be readers were then forced to buy photocopied versions on the black market, for which they paid as much as £250.
Rajaa, a petite, dark-eyed 25-year-old with perfectly manicured nails, was born in Kuwait, the youngest of six children to well-connected Saudi parents. The four brothers and two sisters were raised on the principle of equality, a rare commodity among Saudi families.
Rajaa's father died suddenly of a heart attack in 1990, and her mother took the family back to Riyadh. Rajaa remembers that on the plane back to Saudi, her sister Rasha was forced to put on the abaya, a black garment that encased her entire body, and the hijab [headscarf]. 'I was still a child, so it was easier for me but Rasha underwent an enormous culture shock. It took her a long time to resign herself to the idea that, for women, covering up is a fact of life in Saudi.'
Like other girls her age, life for Rajaa in Riyadh was one of segregation, devoid of a single opportunity to meet anyone outside of her narrow circle. 'In Saudi, girls are not free to pick their own lifestyle or partner,' says Rajaa. 'You can't even choose your own friends.'
This changed when she began studying dental surgery at the King Saudi College at the age of eighteen. Back in 2000, this was the only dentistry college in Saudi, attracting students from all over the kingdom and giving Rajaa an opportunity to meet with people from other classes and lifestyles.
Although male and female students study in separate classes, internships in dentistry are mixed and provide a rare chance for men and women to meet. But this is the exception, says Rajaa, an incurable romantic who adores the music of Frank Sinatra and dreams of getting married on a faraway beach.
In Saudi, she says, people don't marry for love; they are propelled by medieval-like traditions into loveless marriages. Matchmaking throughout the kingdom is almost always through family ties and tribal attachments.
Despite this, Rajaa is quick to defend her city and says there's more there for young people than you'd think. 'Riyadh isn't all camels and oil wells, that's conventional Western thinking,' she laughs, 'I haven't seen a camel in my life.'
Rather Riyadh is a city of gleaming skyscrapers peppered with glitzy shopping malls through which young men and women, armed with mobile phones, stroll, always on the lookout for the opposite sex. As a student, Rajaa used to meet her friends in the evenings at the huge Faisailah Mall in central Riyadh.
Dinner was usually in the busy restaurant atop the mall. And it's in places like this, she says, that Bluetooth works overtime as guys flirt unabashedly with whoever else is plugged in. 'It's the Saudi alternative to a pick-up bar and it's not limited to the velvet class,' Rajaa says.
Rajaa was in her first year of Dentistry College when she began writing The Girls of Riyadh. At first, she wrote for fun, jotting down her experiences as a Saudi college girl. Her older sister Rasha found the first couple of chapters months later and insisted that Rajaa complete the book. Neither sister could have guessed the tidal wave reaction her book would have.
Last summer, Rajaa left Saudi Arabia for the US, where she's studying at the University of Chicago. Despite Rajaa's excitement at being able to study abroad, moving has not been an easy transition. Shying away from the bright lights, Rajaa devotes all her time to studying. Shortly after arriving in Chicago, she also made a conscious decision to wear the hijab. 'In Riyadh, I was forced to do this. Here, it's my own choice,' she explains. 'The hijab is a big issue here. People in Chicago say to me, "Aren't you hot under there? Do you have hair?" It's my personal choice today to cover my head in front of strange men.'
Rajaa's burning ambition is to design and open her own office for dentistry in Riyadh in ten years time and to win the Nobel Prize for Literature by 2015. She fully intends to return to Riyadh and seems unconcerned that publication of her book abroad will stir up trouble again.
Will she make it? Who knows, but she has already made her mark in Saudi society by forcing people to take notice of what's really going on behind the veil of secrecy. Rajaa hopes her book will open a window of opportunity for both the women and men of Riyadh to live - and love - a little more easily.
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