Review: The SandFish by Maha Gargash

Its been a while since I found myself lost in between the lines of a bounded novel because for the last four months all my eyes have been subjected to were various academic journals (Harvard, Stanford, Emory, you name them I read them!).

and so for my first journey it takes me back home to the United Arab Emirates during the 1950’s where a woman named Noora tries to find herself in the midst of troubling times in the UAE in the novel called the Sand fish by Maha Gargash.

Noora , a hot headed and stubborn young Emarati woman, wasn’t like any other woman who grew up in the hard isolated town in the mountain areas of the United Arab Emirates with very little to look forward to, as content as she was with her life her brother made sure he will help build her a better future.

As she was wedded to a wealthy man, she soon begins to transcend from being the teenager into womanhood learning the lessons of what marriage had to give her, yet Noora has always found herself fighting the urge to show her true colours as she dips her leg into deep waters that could lead to very dangerous consequences.

The story had its moments, at start I felt the writing could have been better sought out (being one of the first novels presented from the UAE) , I understood that it tried to portray the colloquial mindset of the UAE, it still felt it was not meshed well between the English and “arabic” (comparing to how Hosseini manages to mesh the colloquial afghan to both his novels)

And being a cynic, I have a very biased opinion of books where the main woman character is this will strong-minded woman! Its just the same sob story when it comes to reading any other stories and I always seek some novelty when the novelist creates a character (similar to how almost all characters in books love to read, or want to be writers) however Noora did grow on me and I did find her character evolvement quite interesting (from strong willed towards being a quiet woman)

However the book ending is what left me unimpressed, however I understand she wanted to let us paint our own ending for the Characters, I always seek to see what the writers wants us to see.

Yet overall, I highly applaud her for her effort of producing such a piece of work and I hope she can help provide the motivation and inspiration of many more other arab writers (and perhaps she has opened a door for other UAE authors)

For those interested in purchasing the book here is on this link:amazon