Hanan Al-Shaikh
Born In Lebanon. Lived in Lebanon, Egypt, the Arabian Gulf, and currently in London. Her novel, .The Story of Zahra., describes the story of an unattractive, overweight Shiite girl living during the Lebanese civil war. The author describes the young girl.s incapability in dealing with war and a male dominated society.
Her Novel .Women of Sand and Myrrh. takes place in the Arabian gulf . It exposes the confusion of morality in a country where everything is forbidden, and for the same reason, everything occurs.
Her writings are very deep. She reveals the inner-workings of her protagonists through stream of consciousness writing. She is not afraid to involve and describe sexual relations between women and other women, women and male relatives (i.e. uncle), or sexual relations that occur between two bodies not hearts. Women struggle for love and through the struggles the body is sacrificed. Her latest Novel is .The Sea of Darkness..
Her novels have been translated into English, Polish, Spanish, French.