Venturing Behind the Veil

     

Jean Sasson is pretty renowned for her "biographies" of Arab women, most particularly the Princess Sultana trilogy. The word biographies raises some skepticism because, on some level, her books are rather exaggerated and dramatized. Princess Sultana, a member of the Saudi Arabian royal family (Al-Saud), relates the woes of her childhood and the trials she, a modern Arab woman, must face in heavily misogynistic and patriarchal Saudi Arabia. Princess Sultana (which is not her real name, for the sake of privacy) grows up in a home with 9 sisters and one brother, and she learns from a very young age that she, despite the fact that she is of royal blood, is expendable and she must worship her brother. Sultana grows up to become a powerful feminist voice, and constantly brings mayhem and chaos into her life but only because she possesses a kind heart.
I will not divulge much of the plot. You have to go read it! The book really strikes chords in the hearts of its readers. I even shed a tear at one point in the novel, because of its truly emotional nature. Yet, there are certain exaggerations in the novel. Sasson evidently utilized exaggeration as a means of rhetoric for the purpose of drawing reader sympathy. She certainly achieved this with me, and as I closed the final instalment of the trilogy earlier today, it was with a heavy heart. Reading about the sufferings of women in Saudi Arabia does not only concern Saudi women. It hits feminists, humanitarians, and any decent human being with the tiniest fraction of compassion. The tales recounted in the novel of teenagers drowned in the family pool for speaking to strange men, Pakistani girls bought purchased for the sole purpose of serving men in sexual bondage, and even the suffering of a Saudi woman who is told by her husband that he has decided to take another wife resonates within the consciousness of every reader.
I therefore recommend this novel to everyone who is slightly interested in the hushed-up affairs of the Saudi Arabian royal family. Although the novel is an expose and very gossipy in its nature, it nevertheless resonates as a cry for help from women who are not able to help themselves. Sasson's books are not purely melancholy in nature, however. On more than one occasion I have uttered a giggle or learned something about religion, politics, and society that proved to be beneficial.