The girls of Riyadh
Rajaa Alsanea on the shores of Lake Michigan. She has been living in Chicago for almost a year, where she is doing her master's degree in dentistry and wants to go back to her homeland
On the wooden coffee table lies a book with the explosive power of a bomb. 300 pages thick, the cover made of plain cardboard. In Arabic script it says: "The girls of Riyadh". Rajaa Alsanea is sitting on the sofa, stretching her chin and saying, "Someone had to make a start." So she made the beginning. Has written a book that is demonized or loved in their homeland, black or white, there is no intervening. It tells only the story of four friends from Riyadh, their dreams and hopes, their lives and loved ones.
This is unheard of for Saudi Arabia. In vain, so far, in the land that shields itself from the rest of the world like no other, has been looking for stories that tell of real life. And then it's a woman, of all people, who lets her gaze through the keyhole!
We are sitting in Rajaas living room. The walls are mint green, African masks look down on a brown leather couch, over the TV hang photos. Rajaa is young, 25 years old, and she is a beauty: brown curls, brown eyes, perfect figure. She is wearing jeans and a jumper and her hair is open. In her flat in Chicago, talking to a woman, she does not need a headscarf like she usually wears in public. Rajaa has been living in the US for almost a year, following her brother and sister to the city on Lake Michigan, where she and her master's degree in dentistry and endodontics. In June 2008, she wants to pass her final exam - and then return home to Saudi Arabia.
Your voice becomes soft, when she talks about her homeland, about the girlfriends there, about the mother. "I love Saudi Arabia," she says. "I miss it infinitely, and I would never do anything that harms my country." But is not that a contradiction? Does not she access the land she grew up in in her book? Finally, she writes about how women break up at arranged marriages. She writes about homosexuality, an absolute taboo in Saudi Arabia and the whole Islamic world. She writes about the friendship of a Sunni woman with a Shiite who ends up in prison. And she writes about divorced women who are ostracized and marginalized by society.
Rajaa closes her eyes for a moment, take a deep breath. Too often she had to defend herself. Then she says, "I'm not saying that all Saudis are as I describe it in my book, and I'm not saying it's right what the characters in my book are doing, I'm just saying that those things in Saudi Arabia gives, I am a writer, not a judge, the verdict must be self-educated. "
And they do. There are the extremists, strictly religious Muslims, who see in the book an insult to their faith. Rajaa has received emails asking for her death: "We pray for you to die, we pray that you lose the people you love, we pray that God will deliver you to the just punishment. " But no one has said that to her face. For that, people scream in the street when they see Rajaa. The women hug her, a physical closeness unthinkable to Saudi men; some shake her hand after all. Women and men photograph and celebrate: Rajaa, the star, Rajaa, the new voice of Arabia.
Like wildfire "The Girls of Riyadh" has spread in Saudi Arabia and from there in the Arab world. A bestseller is the novel, which tells of the friends Kamra, Lamis, Michelle and Sadim, several hundred thousand copies sold - officially. This is madness for a region in which is already considered a literary star, who sells more than 3000 copies. The unofficial numbers go into the millions. Because Rajaa's book, published in Lebanon in September 2005 to escape censorship at home, and until recently unavailable in Saudi Arabia, was a hot-selling black market. Ten times the retail price paid readers for a copy, $ 100 for a collection of loose sheets. Today, the novel can also be bought in Saudi Arabia, the Ministry of Information has given its approval after a long examination - actually. The booksellers often shrug their shoulders, the goods are too dangerous for them.
"Of course I'm proud, it's a dream, a miracle, a fairytale," says Rajaa. She did not expect this success. "I have received so much support, so much encouragement, that makes me infinitely happy - and proud of my country - it shows that Saudi Arabia is on the move."
Some say that Rajaa's novel opened the door to freedom. Because it is suddenly possible in Saudi Arabia to talk about things that were hitherto considered unheard of. Rajaa tells of the letter from a man who got "The Girls of Riyadh" from his daughter, a divorcee. When the father read the fate of Kamra, as he read, how feels the novel character who is rejected by the husband and imprisoned by the parents - only then he has understood. He writes, "I never talked to my daughter about her marriage, I never spoke with my daughter about how she feels, what her dreams are about life, and after we read your book, we really talked for the first time I'll make sure she does not share Kamra's fate. "
Rajaa gets up, crosses the room, stops in front of one of the photos hanging on the wall above the TV. "This is the engagement of my brother," she says. The picture shows a happy couple, a radiant Mashael, a laughing Jamal. In her book, Lamis is the only one of the four friends who manages to marry the man she loves.
Rajaa disappears in the kitchen. "I'm a little nervous," she says, coming back with a silver jug in her hand. It's the first time she's made coffee, all by herself. Otherwise, the Masha, her brother's wife, or Rasha, makes the sister. And at home in Saudi Arabia, in Riyadh, well, there's the mother, there's a cook and a few other housemaids. Rajaa comes from the Saudi elite, financial family Alsanea does not have. She leans forward and puts yellow coffee in two tiny cups. It smells like cardamom. The coffee is hot, sweet, and tastes like herbal tea.
Rajaa's eyes do not give way to the other's eyesThey hold him, return him. Her voice is strong, she looks strong, self-confident. And yet one wonders where she had the courage to write such a book. She laughs. Then she leans back and begins to tell. That she was the baby of the nest, had four brothers and a sister. She was born in Kuwait, where her father works as a journalist. He quickly realizes that his youngest loves the Arabic language, at five she already reads the newspaper article to the father, at six she writes little stories. The Father prophesied: You become a writer once. Rajaa is eight when he dies of a heart attack and the family returns to Saudi Arabia. "I had to be strong, strong to withstand this pain," says Rajaa. "Maybe that's why I'm brave because the worst that could happen to me has already happened." She's silent for a moment, then there's that smile again that makes her face light up. "And do not you also say that the youngest are the stubborn?"
A door slams, loud clatter, then a woman in the room, the white headscarf accurately bound, under his arm a briefcase. "Hello, do not bother, I have to go, see you," she calls, grabs her coat and has disappeared.
"That was my sister Rasha," says Rajaa. "She's late again." Then she pours coffee, grabs the silver dish with dates. "You have to try them, they are really delicious", she says and bites off a piece. She tells her that it was her sister who gave her the necessary courage. "Even as a kid, I knew I'd write a novel one day, but it was not until I came to the university when I left the private school and was taught at a public school for the first time in my life that I felt what I want to write about. " At university, the girl from the upper class meets girls who can not afford to go on holiday in the States every summer. At the university, the Sunni girl meets with Shiite girls, a religious minority in Saudi Arabia, disenfranchised. At the university, the girl from the city meets girls from the village. "That's when I realized how different the girls are in Saudi Arabia," she says. And how strictly shielded they grow up. Rajaa realizes that there is not only a separation of the sexes in the kingdom, but also one of the classes, the religions, the worldviews. She says, "So I knew: I have to write about us, about the girls from Saudi Arabia."
Rajaa becomes a sponge. She becomes friends with Shiites and speaks to those who are not privileged, who do not wear designer clothes under the Abaya, a coat-like overdress prescribed for women in Saudi Arabia in public. Eagerly she absorbs every piece of information, listens to every story. There's the girl chatting night after night with her boyfriend. Is he the one he pretends to be? She has never seen him, the sexes are separated in Saudi Arabia. There is the woman who sleeps with her husband after the official wedding and does not wait until the wedding ceremony. He divorces, she is too frivolous to him. There are the girls who disguise themselves as men, sit in the car and drive off, have fun, just like that - in Saudi Arabia women are not allowed to drive a car. They are stories of love and suffering.These are sad stories, but also happy, funny, crazy ones. Rajaa writes, spins the stories, thinks new ones, in her thoughts and on yellow post-its, which are soon stuck in her entire room: at the cupboard, above the desk.
She is 18 when she types the first sentence into the laptop. She writes a chapter, two, three. Then nothing works. She wants to throw up, as her cellphone rings. It's her sister Rasha. She says, "What are these lyrics on my laptop?" Rajaa used her sister's laptop while vacationing in the US. Rasha shouts into the phone: "That's good, that's really good! You have to keep going!" She presses her little sister, no excuses can be made: too much work at the university? No problem, I'll help you. No idea how the story should go on? We can think of something. So Rajaa continues writing. But only her sister Rasha knows that.
Why did not she tell anyone about the book? "Because I did not know if I could really finish it," she says. "And because I did not know if it would be good enough." She reaches for the book, stroking the cover almost tenderly. Then she says, "It should be a bomb.My family, my friends, everyone should say," That's awesome! When did you do that? I wanted to blow you away. "
She succeeded. But the euphoria does not last long, there is much to talk about in the Alsaneas. The brothers, the mother, Rasha and Rajaa meet. Her brother Ahmad asks: "Do you really want to take the risk of being published? You are not yet married - and you know: our society does not forget anything, and it forgives nothing." Rajaa wants. "We have laws in Saudi Arabia," she says. You will not be jailed for a book release in Lebanon. "
Rajaa's gaze wanders through the living room, hanging from the photo of Jamal and Mashael. "Honestly: Now it's much easier for me to find the right man!" She wants someone who is proud of what she writes. Who supports, encourages and motivates them. "After the release, by the way, I got a lot of marriage proposals," she says. The right person was not there.
Rajaa looks at the clock, it has to go fast now, at the university a patient is waiting. She ties her headscarf, puts books in her backpack, and puts the laptop in her pocket. She has almost an hour off today, but the laptop has to come along anyway. In summer, her book will be published by Penguin US, Rajaa edits, edits and proofreads the English translation. "If I could speak German, I would have done it," she says. Because she is afraid that the meaning of her sentences in the foreign language is lost. Because she is afraid that her book is no longer her book. Rajaa, the perfectionist. And Rajaa, the workaholic. To step down, to stop studying, to write only - she does not want that. "I love writing, but I also need a job that grounds me," she says. When Rajaa, the student, Rajaa, the bestselling author, and her photo - wearing a headscarf, smiling softly at the camera - went through the Saudi media for a year, when on some days she got a thousand e-mails and journalists from England and the Emirates, from Egypt, the USA and Morocco, she almost lost her grip. There were days when she only went out wearing sunglasses - and was recognized anyway. So she pulled on the neqab, the veil of the face that only leaves the eyes open and which Rajaa had never worn before.
The departure to the USA is like a liberation, finally, the bestselling author is allowed to be a student again. In general, she sees life very pragmatically today: "One book sells, the other does not." Then she says: "My brothers and my sister are doctors, they earn well, I do not want to be inferior to that." Rajaa wants to earn her own money, make a career - and in general: Do you not experience the most exciting stories as a doctor? She already has an idea for her next book. And yellow post-its.
On the next page you read an excerpt from the novel by Rajaa Alsanea.
Saudi Arabia and women's rights
The everyday life of the approximately 23 million inhabitants of Saudi Arabia is strictly separated by gender.
Banks have their own women's branches, professors teach their students by video, and in public, men and women who are not related to each other are not allowed to talk to each other. Under the reign of King Abdullah, the absolute monarchy has opened slightly - for example, municipal elections took place in 2005 for the first time since the founding of the state in 1932 - but women still have little rights: they can not vote, not drive, not alone Eat restaurant and travel only with the permission of the father or husband or visit a hospital. And that, even though they are highly educated; There are now more students than students. However, only about five percent of women of working age have a job.
Excerpt from the novel
Here's the beginning of Rajaa Alsanea's novel "The Girls of Riyadh". Ü: Dr. Doris Kilias, 350 p. 19.90 euros, Pendo. The book will be published in German on May 10th
To: seerehwenfadha7et@yahoogroups.com From: "seerehwenfadha7et" Date: 13.2.2004 Subject: I will write about my girlfriends
"God does not change His behavior to His people until it changes His mind." Sure, "Thunder," verse 11
Ladies and gentlemen, dear contemporaries,
You have agreed to a date that is scandalous in the youth scene. Your interlocutor will lead you into a world that is much closer to you than you think. It is a reality in which we live and do not live again. We accept the belief that fits us, the rest does not interest us.
I'm writing for anyone over eighteen years of age, in some countries over the age of twenty-one, since it's the sixth year here (and I'm not sixteen years old) that is when the time of despair begins for boys and girls. I write for anyone who has the guts to read the bare truth on the Internet, who has the perseverance and patience required to join me in this crazy experiment. I write for anyone who is fed up with the old-fashioned love stories, who no longer believe that goodness knows and evil is black and sometimes one-on-one. Who has lost faith that Captain Madjid scored with two goals equalizer and in the last minute still scored the goal to victory. I write for all those who are dissatisfied, unruly, angry, angry. For anyone who thinks that Saturday and Sunday are terrible days, but our desperation goes much further. I'm writing my letters for you, and maybe sparks will sparks, and the change will begin.
This evening is mine, and the heroes of history are you, they are "in you and of you". We come out of the desert, and we return to the desert. And just as our Nedjd lets good and evil sprout, there are good and evil among the heroines of my story, yes, sometimes both are in one person. "Be lenient with what you encounter." Because I decided to just write it down, so without discussing it with my girlfriends, I preferred to change little about the events but a lot about the names. By the way, meanwhile all my friends live under the protection of a "man" or a "guard" or a "guarding man" or have been withdrawn from the market. So if bread and salt are also sacred, it does not diminish the truthfulness of the narrative, nor does it relieve the burning pain of reality. As far as I am concerned, I have nothing to lose, or to say it in the words of Nikos Kazantzakis: "I expect nothing, I fear nothing, I hope nothing." But despite everything that you will read here, life takes its course. I do not think a few letters can stop it.
I will write about my girlfriends, because in every story of them I find myself, I see a tragedy that is like mine. I want to write about my girlfriends, about the prison that sucks the lives of the prisoners, about the time the newspaper columns devour, about doors that are not opened, about wishes that, barely born, are suffocated, about the great Prison cell, over its black walls, over thousands and thousands of martyrs who are buried nameless, in the grave of traditions. My friends, dolls wrapped in cotton, keep money in a locked museum, keeping the story as a check that is not given away, not spent, swarms of fish suffocating in their pools, or in crystal glasses whose cobalt blue is gone. Without fear I will write about my friends, about the bloody chains on the feet of the beautiful, about the maddering, the nausea, the nights of imploring, about the longings that are buried in cushions, about the circling in the nothing, about the death in rates. My friends, pledges bought and sold in the market of superstition, prisoners in the harem of the Orient, dead who have not died, who live, who die, who are perceived as the leap in the bottle-belly. My friends, birds that die voiceless in their caves.
Indeed, you have spoken, my Nizar Qabbani, God have mercy on yours. "May you rest in peace." Rightly you wear the name "poet of women". "And if you do not like it, you should quench your thirst in the sea." Because in love there is no before and no after you, as it is called in a famous song. Even if the mercy of your attachment to the F of women was not the genius of your male chromosomes, but was due to the suicide of your sister who killed herself for an unfortunate love - "He who submits to love destroys her" - so I can only say, what luck to know the blessed Balkis, what a "monkey happiness" to live after you, but also what a misfortune. I think the neddish phrase "monkey happiness" refers to the monkey because it jumps so much.He is like luck, because he stops once, sometimes goes down. Some say that the term is wrong, because it has nothing to do with monkeys, but with ticks. Unfortunately, one of us women will not find her Nizar until she "frees" herself from one of her sisters and transforms the romantic love from a black and white movie into a love in prison. Oh, my heart, do not be sad!
I have disheveled my hair, my lips smeared with bright red, next to me is a plate of potato chips seasoned with lemon and pepper. Everything is ready for the first scandal.
