The story - Jinnya a wilful but otherwise a
conventional Saudi girl had her life turned upside down at Abba airport when
she admired an English expatriate, Mark Maxwell. Through a series of fateful
situations they meet and fall in love, breaking the civil and religious laws of
the country. Fighting against all the
difficulties they plan their future together, only to be discovered by her
brother. He has the agonising task of choosing between his religion and his
sister and to a faceoff with Mark his English friend eventually deciding for
his sister, saving her life. He is now set against his father who is of an
older generation with strongly held religious views.
Originally
written in 1978 it is of that time when Saudi Arabia had recently become a
united country but a country of contrasts, between the more and less religious
elements, between the rich and the poor, between a desire to modernise and a
desire to maintain the discipline of the old. This forms the background to the
novel and highlights the challenges facing the young couple.
The
end leaves the reader to make up their own mind as to rights and wrongs of the
tale.
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