Queens of the Kingdom: The Women of Saudi Arabia Speak

Hanan al-Shaykh's Women of Sand and Myrrh does an incredible job of depicting Saudi in the Eighties. Ms. Al-Shaykh, whilst possessing great talent as an author and being a native Arabic speaker, is from an entirely different cultural background. Then there's a raft of "insider" accounts of the Kingdom, from Frank Gardner to accounts by nursing staff. Great, but you're still a white person sharing your views from your own perspective. Finally, there's the infamous Girls of Riyadh, which I believe is intended to be semi-autobiographical. This book if anything heightened the impression that Saudi girls have nothing to say for themselves.Imagine if British women were judged solely on the basis of vacuous but entertaining Bridget Jones' Diary! English translator of Banaat al-Riyadh, Marilyn Booth, in working with the Saudi female author of the text, eventually washed her hands of the project due to the many revisions Rajaa al-Sanea demanded. Booth claimed that the revisions diluted the provocative nature, for the time and the region, of the Arabic text. The marketplace of Saudi females expressing themselves in a way accessible to those outside the Kingdom is hardly bustling.The first thing that struck me on seeing the front cover of this new work was that Ms Sutcliff is so modest that her name does not even appear. How many authors can say that, that the people documented in the book are more important than the authorial voice? I expected there to be background setting and analyses by the author, or rather, facilitator, as she seems to be here. There are none. Just pure, unvarnished Saudi women speaking for their own damn selves, expressing a range of opinions and political stances, although the stunning black and white deceptively simple portraits tell their own story. (There is a societal taboo over photographs in addition to showing the face of women in public and the tradition of avoiding showing human form in Islamic art).This book does not claim to be an academic text. However, its presentation of a wide range of female Saudi voices, without mediation, telling their stories for them, or the writer outright deciding for themselves what they presume these ladies should think, it has earned its place on reading lists on both an academic and a personal front. It should also be required reading for those professionals who by dint of a Middle Eastern degree course and political training consider themselves qualified to pronounce on the region as a whole.As a non-native Arabic speaker, I've got no objection to people depicting the voices of Saudi women in their writing, but in regular media such as radio, tv and newspapers, Arab speaking women barely appear. Commentary on the Arab world is usually done by white males focusing on the political aspects. Some of those writers are amazing at what they do, but the overall effect is to erase the humanity of an entire region, denying the existence of families, social structures, traditions and institutions of value, or everyday experiences such as going hungry, looking after a family, or being unemployed in a country with zero societal support. There's so much more to learn about this region outwith oil and insurrection, and this book is a great place to start.I have yet to read some of the interviews, I'll return in a comment if I pick up on anything else useful to mention to a general reader.

Fascinating insight into the lives of the women who live in Saudi Arabia. Interviews with a wide range of women from all areas of Saudi life. The illustrations fitted beautifully with the stories the Queens told. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn about a previously little understood society.

I found this book incredibly enlightening and like anywhere in the world some of these women are happy with their lot and some arnt - the difference being in the U.K. you have a lot more legal :charitable support if you need to leave a relationship.. I must admit I devoured this book I loved it ..

After all all the “one says” and the “I’ve heard”, here is, at last: a piece of the truth. From a conversation to another, true reportage with the pace of short novels... A must read!

Beautifully written and insightful. The author gives a voice to an audience never heard before. Most captivating book I have read this year!