 First edition cover | |
| Author | Eman Quotah |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Tin House |
Publication date | January 26, 2021 |
| ISBN | 9781951142452 |
Bride of the Sea is a 2021 novel by Arab-American writer Eman Quotah.
| First edition cover | |
| Author | Eman Quotah |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Tin House |
Publication date | January 26, 2021 |
| ISBN | 9781951142452 |
Bride of the Sea is a 2021 novel by Arab-American writer Eman Quotah.
Bride of the Sea follows Muneer and Saeedah over four decades. Beginning in the 1970s, Muneer and Saeedah are newlywed Saui Arabian immigrants who have settled in Cleveland, Ohio. During Saeedah's pregnancy, Muneer begins to doubt that they will remain married. Although they have been friends since childhood, Muneer does not believe they are suited to be married. Six years into their marriage, Muneer's doubts come to fruition, and the couple divorces. Muneer returns to Saudi Arabia while Saeedah remain in the United States with their daughter, Hanadi. Afraid her daughter may be taken from her, Saeedah disappears with her now five-year-old daughter, and Muneer spends years searching for his child. Muneer and Hanadi finally reconvene when Hanadi is 17, and Hanadi, who now goes by Hannah, attempts to reconcile what she knew about her mother and early life and what her father shares with her.
According to literary review aggregator Book Marks, the novel received reviews the site characterized as "Rave", "Positive", and "Mixed". [1]
In a starred review, Booklist 's Shoba Viswanathan called the novel "gripping" and highlighted how it "offers thoughtful observations about religious identity, and provides vignettes of Saudi culture". Viswanathan further noted, "Geopolitics is integral to the story, serving as a backdrop for all the developments. Quotah’s deft characterization and pacing, combined with an inside look at Saudi Arabian life, make this debut a compelling and worthy read." [2]
Michael Welch of The Chicago Review of Books wrote,
One of fiction’s greatest possibilities is how it can exist as something both intimate and grand, simultaneously exploring the life of a character and the world they are growing into, until one narrative unfolds into many. Bride of the Sea does just this, as the novel intertwines the dissolution and reconstruction of a single family with the evolving histories of the United States and Saudi Arabia. Eman Quotah deftly spans decades, miles, and cultures—and ultimately tells more stories within her 312 page debut than some authors tell across their entire careers. [3]
The Washington Post's Keija Parssinen similarly wrote, "Where journalism constrains with word counts and column inches [...], novels offer the capaciousness to reveal a society in its complexity; to raise a headline-flattened people into three dimensions [...] Quotah does this with aplomb, offering Americans a more nuanced view of the Saudi kingdom through a cast of compelling characters and a sweeping plot that spans continents and decades." [4]
Publishers Weekly wrote, "The narrative’s delicacy belies the weight of its themes, and descriptions are etched with precision [...] Quotah’s resonant, neatly plotted outing will be a treat for readers who love fractured family dramas." [5]
On behalf of the Star Tribune , Eric Nguyen highlighted how the novel, which "fluidly rotates between each family member's perspective", provides "a sensitive portrayal of becoming American—both the shedding of one's culture for the sake of fitting in and the difficult task of finding one's place, especially as an Arab American". Nguyen also discussed Quotah's characters:
While Quotah should be praised for the fleshed-out development of Muneer [...] and Hanadi [...], Saeedah is the author's most interesting creation, an enigmatic character who's full of quiet and frustrating surprises. One just wishes there was more of her point of view on the page [...]. Still, in a novel as much about finding one's identity as it is about family—the way they belong to us but at the same time remain unknowable—this sense of secrecy that Quotah imparts on Saeedah makes for a devastatingly honest novel. [6]
Although referring to the novel as "impressive", Fran Hawthorne, writing for The New York Journal of Books, critiqued the development of Saeedah's character. Hawthorne writes, "While pages and pages of often powerful writing are devoted to Hanadi’s and Muneer’s points of view, Saeedah’s voice is as stifled as if she were living in the most rigid, traditional Saudi household ... She is granted just one sentence justifying the kidnapping and no opportunity to explain some of her other wild actions [...] There is little sense of any fear, love, anxiety, annoyance, or triumph she might be feeling." [7]
Kirkus Reviews called Bride of the Sea "a rich, finely rendered novel". [8]
Library Journal's Faye Chadwell [9] and the Washington Independent Review of Books's Kristin H. Macomber also reviewed the novel. [10]
Booklist included Bride of the Sea on their list of the top ten debut novels of 2021. [11]
Bride of the Sea won the 2022 Arab American Book Award. [12]
The Arabian Peninsula, or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate. At 3,237,500 km2 (1,250,000 sq mi), the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Islamic absolute monarchy in which Sunni Islam is the official state religion based on firm Sharia law. Non-Muslims must practice their religion in private and are vulnerable to discrimination and arrest. While no law requires all citizens to be Muslim, non-Muslim foreigners attempting to acquire Saudi Arabian nationality must convert to Islam. Children born to Muslim fathers are by law deemed Muslim, and conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and punishable by death. Blasphemy against Sunni Islam is also punishable by death, but the more common penalty is a long prison sentence; there have been 'no confirmed reports of executions for either apostasy or blasphemy' in the 21st century.
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about 2150000 km2, making it the fifth-largest country in Asia and the largest in the Middle East. It is bordered by the Red Sea to the west; Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the north; the Persian Gulf, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the east; Oman to the southeast; and Yemen to the south. Bahrain is an island country off its east coast. The Gulf of Aqaba in the northwest separates Saudi Arabia from Egypt and Israel. Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. Saudi Arabia's capital and largest city is Riyadh; the kingdom is also the location of Islam's two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina.
The Kingdom Holding Company (KHC) (Arabic: شركة المملكة القابضة) is a Saudi conglomerate holding company, based in Riyadh. The KHC is a publicly listed company on the Tadawul (Saudi stock exchange). The KHC consists of a select team of experienced investment specialists directed by its founder and chairman, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and chief executive officer, Eng. Talal Ibrahim Al Maiman. The company describes itself as a diversified investment company, whose main interests are financial services, real estate, tourism and hospitality, media, entertainment, petrochemicals, aviation and technology.
Ghazi Abdul Rahman Al Gosaibi was a Saudi politician, diplomat, technocrat, poet, and novelist. He was an intellectual and a member of the Al Gosaibi family that is one of the oldest and richest trading families of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Al Gosaibi was considered among Saudi Arabia's topmost technocrats since the mid-1970s. The Majalla called him the "Godfather of Renovation" while Saudi journalist Othman Al Omeir argued that he was "the only great man in Saudi Arabia."
The Kingdom is a 2007 action thriller film directed by Peter Berg and starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, and Jennifer Garner. The film is set in Saudi Arabia, and is based on the 1996 bombing of the Khobar housing complex, also on the 2004 Khobar massacre and the two 2003 bombings of four compounds in Riyadh. It was released in the United States on September 28, 2007.
It is but one version of Arabian turbans that have been worn in the Arabian Peninsula from the pre-Islamic era to the present day. Islamic Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula region such as the Quraysh, Ansar, Qahtanites, Kindites, Nabataeans, Qedarites, Adnanites, Axumites, Himyarites, Lakhmids, Ghassanids, and others used to wear the turban alongside the Keffiyeh which is also popular today in the rest of the Arabian peninsula.
Rajaa al-Sanea is a Saudi Arabian writer who became famous through her novel Girls of Riyadh. The book was first published in Lebanon in 2005 and in English in 2007. Al-Sanea grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the daughter of a family of doctors. As of 2014, she is currently an assistant professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Until June 2018, Saudi Arabia was the only country in the world in which women were forbidden from driving motor vehicles. The Women to Drive Movement was a campaign by Saudi women, whom the government denies many rights to which men are entitled, for the right to drive motor vehicles on public roads. Dozens of women drove in Riyadh in 1990 and were arrested and had their passports confiscated. In 2007, Wajeha al-Huwaider and other women petitioned King Abdullah for the right to drive, and a film of al-Huwaider driving on International Women's Day 2008 attracted international media attention.
Loujain al-Hathloul is a Saudi women's rights activist, a social media figure, and political prisoner. She is a graduate of the University of British Columbia. Al-Hathloul has been arrested and released on several occasions for defying the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia and was arrested in May 2018, with several prominent women's rights activists, on the charge of "attempting to destabilise the kingdom" after being effectively kidnapped in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As of October 2018, her husband, Saudi stand-up comedian Fahad al-Butairi, had also been forcibly returned from Jordan to the Kingdom and was under arrest.
The Houthi–Saudi Arabian conflict is an ongoing armed conflict between the Royal Saudi Armed Forces and Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi forces that has been taking place in the Arabian Peninsula, including the southern Saudi regions of Asir, Jizan, and Najran, and northern Yemeni governorates of Saada, Al Jawf, and Hajjah, since the onset of the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen in 2015.
Saudi Vision 2030 is a government program launched by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that aims to achieve the goal of increased diversification economically, socially and culturally, in line with the vision of Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman. It was first announced on 25 April 2016 by the Saudi government.
The Hate U Give is a 2017 young adult novel by Angie Thomas. It is Thomas's debut novel, expanded from a short story she wrote in college in reaction to the police shooting of Oscar Grant. The book is narrated by Starr Carter, a 16-year-old African-American girl from a poor neighborhood who attends an elite private school in a predominantly white, affluent part of the city. Starr becomes entangled in a national news story after she witnesses a white police officer shoot and kill her childhood friend, Khalil. She speaks up about the shooting in increasingly public ways, and social tensions culminate in a riot after a grand jury decides not to indict the police officer for the shooting.
Salwa Al Neimi, also Salwa al-Nuʿaymī is a Syrian writer, poet and journalist living in France. Originally from Damascus, she is known for her outspoken views on topics which are taboo in the Muslim world, particularly female sexuality. In 2007 she published her debut novel, The Proof of the Honey, which was noted for its liberal treatment of female sexuality.
Maha Al-Saati is a Saudi Arabian female filmmaker, university assistant professor and graduate of Simon Fraser University who has taught both in Vancouver, Canada and Saudi Arabia. Her academic research covers the representation of architectural spaces, education through the use of film, and the influence of religion and culture on media. She is also an alum of the TIFF filmmaker lab 2020, TIFF Writers Studio 2021, and recipient of the TIFF Share Her Journey award 2020. She is of mixed Arab and Uzbek heritage.
The Magic Fish is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel written and illustrated by Trung Le Nguyen. The novel tells the story of Tiến Phong, a second generation American Vietnamese teenager, who helps his mother learn English through fairy tales while struggling to tell her about his sexuality.
You Exist Too Much is a debut novel by Zaina Arafat, published June 9, 2020 by Catapult. The book won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction in 2021.
The New Girl is a spy novel by Daniel Silva. It is the nineteenth novel in the Gabriel Allon series. It was released on July 16, 2019 and debuted at the top of the New York Times bestseller list on August 4.
Eman Quotah is an Arab-American novelist. She won the 2022 Arab American Book Award.
A History of Burning is a 2023 novel by Canadian author Janika Oza. It was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2023 Governor General's Awards. The 10 perspectives, the novel traces a family's experiences over a century as they migrate from India to Africa and eventually to Canada, all the while facing the challenge of preserving their cultural customs and unity in the face of a frequently unwelcoming environment and evolving societal standards.