The Sand Fish
SynopsisPlot
Set in the 1950s in what is now the United Arab Emirates, The Sand Fish tells the poignant and powerful story of a rebellious young woman trapped in a repressive society—as richly atmospheric a look at Middle Eastern life and culture as The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and Alaa Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building.
Story
About this book
Set in the 1950s on the Arabian Peninsula, The Sand Fish follows Noora, a seventeen-year-old living in the sparse, sun-scorched mountains of what is now the United Arab Emirates. Fiery and independent, she is unlike the other women around her, though she shares their poverty and endurance. After her mother dies and her father loses his grip on reality, Noora faces the prospect of an arranged marriage. She runs, but circumstances force her back into the very situation she tried to escape.
Noora becomes the third wife of a wealthy older man and moves from the mountains to a coastal settlement. The shift in landscape mirrors a shift in confinement. She compares herself to a sand fish, a desert lizard she once watched in the highlands, throwing itself repeatedly against rocks when trapped in unfamiliar terrain. The title draws directly from this image. As Noora navigates the politics and hierarchies of her new household, an unexpected turn introduces both risk and secrecy into her already precarious position.
Maha Gargash, who grew up in Dubai, sets the novel in a period before the oil-driven transformation of the Gulf region. The story depicts daily customs, family structures, and the physical environments of mountain and coastal communities during a time rarely explored in English-language fiction.
