Maha Gargash

About

Maha Gargash is an Emirati novelist and documentary filmmaker born in Dubai to a prominent Emirati family. She studied radio and television at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., before completing a master’s degree at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 1985, she joined Dubai Television, where she worked on documentaries exploring traditional Arab societies. Her work in television took her across the region and gave her opportunities to research and document the cultural traditions that later became central to her fiction. Her debut novel, The Sand Fish (2009), is set in the United Arab Emirates during the 1950s and explores a young woman’s struggle for independence in a rapidly changing society. Her second novel, That Other Me (2016), examines family secrets, social expectations, and women’s ambitions in contemporary Gulf Arab culture. Through richly detailed settings and complex family relationships, Gargash brings Emirati life and traditions to an international readership.