Literary Fiction

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Turbulence

What happens when the life you carefully built begins to feel like a life you never chose? Dunya Dawood once dreamed of becoming a documentary filmmaker. Then she fell in love, married, and moved to the Middle East, where her ambitions gradually gave way to the demands of domestic life. A decade later, pregnant with her second child, she boards a flight to New York and finds herself unexpectedly separated from her husband and young son in business class. For the first time in years, Dunya has space to think. As the plane crosses continents, she revisits the decisions that brought her here, questioning the compromises she made between love, faith, family expectations, and her own ambitions. But when a shocking discovery triggers an unexpected crisis mid-flight, she faces a decision that could change everything. In Turbulence, Hafsa Lodi explores the complicated intersection of Muslim identity, feminism, marriage, and motherhood. Thoughtful and emotionally intimate, the novel asks whether women can challenge the expectations placed upon them without abandoning the people and beliefs they hold dear.

United Arab Emirates United States 2026

Gulf

Set across the Arabian Gulf, Gulf follows five women from different backgrounds whose lives intersect in a region shaped by gender inequality, political conflict, economic disparity, and cultural divides. Dounia, a young Saudi woman, struggles with the restrictions of married life and the prospect of raising a daughter in a society where women’s freedom is limited. Flora, a Filipina domestic worker, leaves her surviving child behind after a devastating natural disaster forces her to seek work abroad. In Syria, Zeinah is pushed into marriage with an ISIS fighter, while Justine, an American museum curator in Abu Dhabi, confronts the contradictions between her progressive ideals and her own complicity in unequal power structures. Meanwhile, Eskedare, an Ethiopian teenager, fights to escape the circumstances that threaten to define her future. Through these interconnected stories, Ogrodnik explores the ways women navigate oppression, displacement, and moral compromise. Gulf is a powerful examination of survival, rebellion, and the struggle for agency in a world shaped by unequal power.

Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates 2025

Hope You Are Satisfied

Hope You Are Satisfied

Set in Dubai in 1990, on the eve of the first Gulf War, Hope You Are Satisfied follows Riya, a 25-year-old Indian woman working for a small tour company in a city that has yet to become the glittering global metropolis it is today. Living far from her family, Riya sends money home to support her mother and younger sister, while dreaming of a future that offers more than endless work and financial obligations. Her life takes an unexpected turn when a seemingly ordinary workplace mishap involving a powerful sheikh threatens her position. As she attempts to repair the damage, Riya becomes entangled with Dubai’s shadowy network of fixers, arms dealers, foreign soldiers, intelligence operatives, and corrupt businessmen. Meanwhile, the looming threat of war transforms the city’s atmosphere, exposing the precariousness of life for the migrant workers who keep its tourism industry running. With sharp humour and a lively cast of expatriates, Malik explores the contradictions of a city built on ambition, wealth, and the labour of people who often remain invisible. Through Riya’s experiences, the novel examines migration, class inequality, cultural displacement, and the tension between family duty and personal freedom. Blending espionage, social satire, and historical fiction, it offers a glimpse of Dubai before its transformation into a global destination.

United Arab Emirates 2023