Sand
by Paul Majkut
470 pages· 2014
About
Sand
Originally published as "Sandstorm" in The Riyadh Daily in 1987-8 as a serialized novel, this frightening novel is an eclectic work combining surreal events and naturalistic description. Heavily censored by Saudi officials when it first appeared, it is here published uncensored in its original form for the first time.
A neo-Gothic novel written in the tradition of the modern Arabesque and psychological Grotesque genres, "Sand" is a direct appeal to the reader's ethical judgment.
A possible threat to the wife of an American oil magnate brings an incognito investigator from the Institute for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to the InterHo hotel. At the Institute, he is secretly involved with a jihadist brotherhood that includes Osama bin Laden. At the same time, “the Author” observes and comments on the story as a character at the hotel. Sand is a snapshot album of Riyadh in the late 1980s.
Originally published as "Sandstorm" in The Riyadh Daily in 1987-8 as a serialized novel, this frightening novel is an eclectic work combining surreal events and naturalistic description. Heavily censored by Saudi officials when it first appeared, it is here published uncensored in its original form for the first time.
A neo-Gothic novel written in the tradition of the modern Arabesque and psychological Grotesque genres, "Sand" is a direct appeal to the reader's ethical judgment.
A possible threat to the wife of an American oil magnate brings an incognito investigator from the Institute for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to the InterHo hotel. At the Institute, he is secretly involved with a jihadist brotherhood that includes Osama bin Laden. At the same time, “the Author” observes and comments on the story as a character at the hotel. Sand is a snapshot album of Riyadh in the late 1980s.
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