'Girls of Riyadh' interview
Updated on 06 July 2007
We talk to author Rajaa Alsanea about Girls of Riyadh, her novel about the lives, dreams and loves of Saudi women currently causing a storm in that most conservative of kingdoms.
Sex, violence, homosexuality and divorce. Not what you'd expect in the first novel by a young woman writing about life in Saudi Arabia.
"Girls of Riyadh" has become a publishing sensation in the Arab world, being reprinted seven times in under two years.
The book's caused outrage for it's portrayal of women drinking, having sex and dressing up as men in order to go out alone.
All of this is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia, but the 25 year old author Rajaa Alsanea says she has simply described life as it is.
Her book is published in English this week and she spoke to Elodie Harper.
