If you are looking for a good read to idle away time at the beach or by the pool, how about picking up a fiction novel written by an Emirati and based right here in Dubai.
‘The Sand Fish’ is Maha Gargash’s first novel and it explores themes of freedom, independence, scandal and jealousy.
Set in the 1950s, in what today is Dubai, ‘The Sand Fish’ is the story of a young woman from the mountains who is sent away from her family to become the third wife of a rich pearl merchant. Seventeen-year-old Noora is not like the other women of the sun-battered mountains of the Arabian Peninsula. She shares their poverty and uncomplaining existence in the harshness around her, but carries a fiery independence, having grown up with parents indifferent to the ways of society.
With the death of her mother, her father sinks into madness. When her brother assumes control of the family and insists that she marry, Noora refuses, and flees to a nearby mountain village. There, she falls in love, only to discover to her horror that he is already promised to another of the village’s daughters. Shattered, Noora returns home to find that her father has disappeared and that her brother has arranged her marriage. She is to be third wife to a childless pearl merchant, and move to his ‘proper house’ in a distant diving village.
‘The Sand Fish’ is available at Magrudy’s. Maha Gargash also is doing a book signing at Magrudy’s, Dubai Festival City, Saturday, November 7 at 6.30pm
Sorce:http://www.7days.ae
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