Conversations: Girls of Riyadh

Rajaa Alsanea created a sensation in Saudi Arabia in 2005 when as a 23-year-old first-time novelist she published Girls of Riyadh. It was a book that broke taboos by revealing the inner lives of young Saudis and especially the Kingdom's sheltered women. Girls of Riyadh is an important book for non-Saudis as well, for it obliterates many misunderstandings about Islam and emphasizes the overwhelming role of culture in the way Saudis live their lives. Girls of Riyadh was just coming out in English translation in the U.S. and Britain when I arrived in Saudi Arabia last week. But I had to call Rajaa in Chicago, where she is attending dental school, to see how she was doing. Read the book to see for yourself, but you'll get some of the idea from my conversation with Rajaa, in which she spoke English throughout.

What inspired you to write Girls of Riyadh?

I wanted to become a writer when I grew up. When I was 18, I felt that I was ready to write something and felt I had this power to write about something that was never written before, and that's the life of girls in Saudi Arabia, and their struggle within the restrictions of traditions and families, and their rights, and the way they try to do everything they can within what's allowed and what's not allowed sometimes.

Rajaa Alsanea/Photo courtesy Penguin Press

Was it purely an act of writing?

Because I started writing the book when I was 18, my mind was changing. I started to have that criticism inside me toward Saudi society. Before, it was something like, “This is my life and I have to live it the way it is, and I don't have to question anything around me.” Growing up I thought, “No, there are things that can be questioned. Anything that is not written by God can be questioned.” I did not question Islamic rules. Seeing how me and my friends and girls in Saudi Arabia are being treated, I felt that this has to change, and that I have to contribute to that change. I've heard people tell me when I used to talk about it, “You'll never change the world.” Maybe that triggered me to actually try to change the world.

How accurate is your portrayal of Saudi Arabia and the lives of women, or at least those in what you call the “velvet society”?

Those stories of those four girls are fictional, but the things they have been through are very realistic. It is not exaggerated. What they have been through happens every day in Saudi Arabia. The way that they struggle and the way that love is considered a sin in Saudi. That's very true. The way girls do not get the respect they need to get, like men do, is very true. The way they try to do things that are not officially allowed for them is true.

All Saudis are Muslims and all Saudis are traditional in one way or another. But some don't really accept what is offered to them. They want more. And they want to question everything. Like me, I don't allow anybody to tell me what do to. And I don't want anybody to tell me how to live my life. I feel that there are things I can ask for, for instance, my right to drive, or to vote. Some girls and some families in Saudi Arabia are afraid of asking for their rights, because that's how everybody is living their lives, and they don't want to get into trouble, and into the struggle that I have been going through since I wrote the book.

Does the West have an accurate picture of how Saudi women live?

The West got it all wrong. All issues are being raised nowadays. There are a lot of liberals in Saudi Arabia. And there are a lot of traditional conservatives as well. We are trying to live our lives, we are trying to sort our issues between us. That book was a trial to let people to sit and talk about these matters that they were embarrassed to talk about before because they were so sensitive. Here in the States when they read something about the book, they think this Saudi girl is writing about sex before marriage, she is asking for females' right to drink at parties, and homosexuality. They are taking the things that matter to them as Americans. They think these are rights we are fighting for in Saudi. No. The battle is so different, the stuff we are asking for in Saudi are not the stuff the American society would want. We have our own culture. We have our own traditions. We want some of these traditions.

But there are things beyond these traditions that we want to be rid of. For me, I want to change the core of Saudi society. The core in Saudi Arabia is the family, the tribe, the group. While the core outside, in the U.S. or in any other country, is the individual. The individual owns his rights in life. He chooses who to marry, what to do in life, where to work, who to be friends with, who to interact with. In Saudi, you have to have the support of people around you, you have to be part of a group to belong to Saudi society. People are not being appreciated for who they are. We are being appreciated for how our grandfathers were.

Is the novel autobiographical in any way?

No, it's not.

Was Girls of Riyadh ever banned in Saudi Arabia?

There were imams in mosques who said this book should be banned and this girl should not be allowed to speak on behalf of Saudi women because she does not represent Saudi women who are the majority of Saudi females. There are still bookstores that are not willing to sell the book, maybe because they are against what was written in the book.

Did you write the novel for Saudi girls, or any other audience?

Honestly, no. I was trying to write it for myself. I was trying to raise the topics that mattered to me the most. After publishing the book, I was amazed and overwhelmed by the reaction that I was getting from all generations in Saudi. I had people in their 60s and 70s read book, men and women. A lot of the moms came to me saying they want me to write about their generations' problems, they have a lot of issues they want to talk about.

The girls in the novel seem profoundly sad.

It is not just in the girls. I was trying to say even the boys have problems with traditions. Everyone in Saudi is struggling with traditions. There are people who are very, very OK with how life is. That's what they are used to having, and any change may be frightening for them. But there are others who do not really like the lives they are living. They have to accept it because of a lot of reasons, their families, their houses, their tribes, their circles of people. That's why those couples [in the novel], even though both of them want to have the same thing, at the end they do respect their families traditions, because without their Saudi families, there is no hope for them to survive in Saudi.

Faisal is in love and can't act on it.

And Firas, as well. He wanted to marry Sadeem, but because of his image in Saudi society, he did not want to marry a girl who was with a man before him, with Waleed. Rashid, who married Gamrah because his family wanted him to marry her, was in love with Kari in the States. He did what his family wanted him to do, because he knew that he has to have their support to be able to survive within the Saudi society. And that at the end, he felt that choice was wrong, and that he should have stuck to what ever he wanted to have in life. All of these characters want something that their families do not actually approve. It is always a struggle between choosing or following what you want or what your family wants in Saudi. And most of the Saudis follow what their families want.

You mentioned you had to struggle with opposition to Girls of Riyadh?

I got some scary emails. That they know where I live. And know where I go to work. And that I should watch out that they will find me and they will kill me. The most painful emails were the ones attacking my family. They attacked my brothers because they are the males in the family. Living in Saudi, I know how important the male image is. My family was very, very supportive of everything I did. They were behind me all the way. They said I should not pay attention and that what I am doing is for a good cause. And that I should keep doing it.

Did you go to Chicago to escape the reaction?

No, all my brothers did their residencies in the States. They all graduated from undergraduate in Saudi and did their residency in the States. I was just following the path of the family. In my family, we are three physicians and three dentists.

It would have been far more difficult without your family's support?

That's true. I think that for a female to succeed in Saudi Arabia, she has no hope if there are no supportive males in her family, whether it is a father, brother, son. It is always the males in the family who support women. And if they don't want the woman to succeed, then she will never make it.

Your late father played an important role?

He set the rules. He taught my brothers. I am the youngest in the family. They all had this respect for females raised inside them because of my father, they saw the way that my father treated my mother.

I see you are wearing the Islamic hijab, even in Chicago. Why is that?

I started wearing it about three years ago. I reached a state where I wanted to show my devotion and commitment to God. I know that I've always looked at it as part of my religion. I didn't want to do it because I felt I am too young for it. I will do it when I am 50-60 years old. I wanted to look nice nowadays. But I just felt that I'm ready to do it. I wasn't thinking of doing it because of doing interviews three years later. But now I feel that wearing the hijab gives the message to people, when they talk to me in interviews, that this hijab is not really suffocating me, it is not really putting any pressure on me. I'm still an opened minded girl. I'm still open for change and discussion. I can run an intellectual discussion with a man without being shy or feeling hesitant in any way. I am just who I am, and you shouldn't really pay so much attention to what I am wearing in my hair or my clothes.

How is life in Chicago?

The weather is bad (laughs). It is very cold in the winter. I miss home a lot. I can't wait to go back. But living in Chicago is a very different experience from living in Riyadh. Being exposed to the American culture, and more than the American culture, so many different cultures, is actually good for me. It teaches me how to respect others. And it teaches me to accept differences, to deal with these differences, to enjoy life, enjoy friendships. I became more independent. I learned how to do laundry (laughs).

What is your experience of being a Muslim in America these days?

I visited the States without wearing the hijab several times before. I have to say that the way people look at me is so different from when I didn't used to wear the hijab. Nowadays the first thing that comes to anybody's mind when they see me is that I am Muslim. I want people to look behind this hijab. I want them to deal with me as a person, and not spend too much time thinking of what I can do as Muslim and what I can't, if I can drink or not, or if I can have sex before marriage or not. Before, I feel that I can do anything I want, and people would not judge me based on being a Muslim. Nowadays, if I don't smile at somebody's face, then I'm a terrorist because I am wearing hijab and I am not smiling. People really tend to judge Muslims more than they should.

--By Scott MacLeod/Riyadh