Ruins of Secular Nationalism

The publication of Rajaa Alsanea’s (Rajāʾ al-Ṣāniʿ; b. 1981) debut novel Girls of Riyadh in 2006 was a turning point for contemporary Arabic literature in general and, especially, for Saudi Arabian literature. The novel, in the form of emails sent to a wide-reaching listserv, chronicles the lives of four affluent women as they navigate two intersecting worlds. The first of those worlds is that of globalised identities and changing social norms in Saudi Arabia today, and the second is that of state-enforced restrictions on young women’s mobility and sexuality. The numerous controversies surrounding the novel, far from decreasing its popularity