Black Book of Arabia
SynopsisPlot
Meet a princess whose best friend literally tries to steal her wedding, down to her bridal shoes and fiancé; a bride who mysteriously goes blind on her wedding day and stays blind for years; a woman whose romantic Parisian honeymoon proves too good to be true; and a jealous wife who lures her husband into falling in love with another woman. These stories present an intimate picture of women's lives in the Middle East.
Story
About this book
Black Book of Arabia is a collection of short stories by Hend Al Qassemi, a writer from the emirate of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. The stories center on the lives of women in the Middle East, exploring friendships, marriages, rivalries, and private disappointments through fictional but closely observed situations. Al Qassemi draws on settings and social dynamics familiar to the Gulf region, giving each story a specific emotional landscape.
The collection includes a range of premises. One story follows a woman whose closest friend attempts to replicate her entire wedding, copying details down to the bridal shoes and the groom. Another tells of a bride who loses her sight on her wedding day and remains blind for years afterward. A third tracks a honeymoon in Paris that unravels, while yet another involves a wife who deliberately engineers her husband's affair with another woman. Each scenario carries its own internal logic and tension, rooted in questions of loyalty, control, and self-knowledge.
The stories are set against a social world where family expectation, wealth, and tradition shape personal choices in specific ways. Al Qassemi writes from within that world, and the details she selects tend to be domestic and particular rather than sweeping.
