Finding Nouf: A Novel [Paperback]

 

 

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FINDING NOUF is a mystery, a psychological study, and a searing glimpse into the lives of the people of Saudi Arabia.

Nouf ash-Shrawi, a sixteen-year-old girl from a prominent family, disappears three days before her wedding. A truck and a camel disappear as well. Othman, Nouf's brother, asks his friend and desert guide Nayir ash-Sharqi to lead a group into the desert to find her. Nayir has led many search-and-rescue missions into the desert and they have all ended successfully but after a week with no sight of Nouf, truck, or camel, he has to concede defeat and return to face the Shrawi family and admit his failure. Soon after his return to Jeddah, Nouf is found dead by a wandering group of travelers. The family asks Nayir to return to the desert to bring Nouf home.

Nayir brings Nouf's body to the mortuary where he witnesses a dispute between the coroner and a lab assistant, Katya Hijazi. Nayir is horrified to be in the presence of a woman who, although her face is covered in his presence, works without a veil among men.

The coroner rules Nouf's death an accident; she was found in a wadi and she drowned. These accidents are not uncommon in the desert when sudden storms turn the dry river beds into rivers of swiftly moving water. But Katya disputes his findings, pointing out defensive wounds on Nouf's hands and arms. When it is discovered that Nouf was pregnant, her death becomes something more.

Only Othman shows interest in having Nouf's death investigated as a murder and, again, asks Nayir to find the truth. The Shrawi family has such power and influence that the case is closed at their request. But Katya Hijazi isn't willing to let the murder be ignored either. Nayir and Katya soon find their paths crossing as they go about their separate investigations.

Together Nayir and Katya, in different ways, try to learn how Nouf, surrounded by women and bodyguards, living in a walled estate once owned by a Saudi prince, could have had any time alone with a man. The lives of men and women within the same family rarely blend. Nayir feels his soul may be in jeopardy as he talks to women, especially Katya, about Nouf. Together they learn that Nouf had meetings with someone in an abandoned zoo, that she was convinced that she was going to escape from the confines of Saudi society, and that she was going to make a life in New York City. When Katya refuses to give up her search for answers, her engagement to Orthman is ended. Nayir refuses to give up when Orthman's insists that Nouf's death no longer matters, risking his spiritual life for the sake of a girl he never knew.

FINDING NOUF is the story of a teenager who wants more than her religion and her society will allow her to experience. The great wealth of her family doesn't broaden her horizons and expand her experience of life but, instead, contains her within a wall that is impossible to breach without serious consequences.

The world of women is a world that a man like Nayir, an orphan with only an uncle as family, cannot comprehend but he puts his spiritual life at risk for the sake of Othman, a friend. Nayir is strict in his adherence to the rules of Islam but he is Palestinian and, as such, he is less than a Saudi. His soul isn't as important and as an outsider, despite his family's deep roots in the country, he is less than his Saudi friends.

The lives of women in Saudi Arabia, one of the most rigidly gender-segregated and gender- biased countries in the world, are hidden from sight behind walls and behind veils. Author Zoe Ferraris has lived in Saudi Arabia and was married to a Bedouin. She knows the customs and rules that keep women hidden from the real world and the real world hidden from them. Marriages are arranged and grooms make promises to their brides-to-be that will never be honored. Before the wedding, the women are promised travel beyond Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. The men bolster their promises of a wider world by purchasing jackets for their brides' trousseaus. No one needs a jacket in the Saudi climate. They remain a sign of what might have been in closets filled with designer clothes.

Women rarely leave Saudi Arabia, confined to lives of afternoon visits with other women who have nothing to do in the course of their days. They are too rich to have to work, too protected to engage in discussions of world affairs, especially those of their own countries. They are assigned drivers when they are children (it is against the law for a woman to drive) and they are assigned male protectors when they come from behind the walls of their estates. Religious police prowl the streets looking for couples who should not be together, couples that are not married. The punishment for breaking the religious laws is death by beheading. If, after making his ablutions, a man sees a woman, even veiled, as he makes his way to the mosque, he must return to his home and perform the ablution rite again before he can he can pray among other men. He becomes unclean by seeing a woman who is by nature unclean. The world of women is a world that a man like Nayir, an orphan with only an uncle as family, cannot comprehend.

First Sentence: Before the sun set that evening, Nayir filled his canteen, tucked a prayer run beneath his arm, and climbed the south-facing dune near the camp.

Nayir ash-Sharqi, known as 'Tracker' is called in by a wealthy and influential family to find Nouf. Nouf is a 16-year-old girl who has gone missing. Her body is found in the desert. So how is it that she drowned? Working, quite uncomfortably, with Karya Hijazi, a female lab worker at the coroner's office, Nayir must overcome his natural religious barrier to being in a close setting with a woman, yet his longing for female companionship, to learn the truth of Nouf's death.

This was a fascinating read. I felt I learned so much about Saudi culture and Islam. It was interesting to see Nayir's struggles both with his own identify, being Jordanian and wishing he were Bedouin but feeling he didn't really fit anywhere, and his conflicts with women. It is such a different world from what we know and/or understand. Unfortunately, I did feel those conflicts overshadowed the mystery, which was well-plotted and did have a very satisfactory twist at the end, but it held an almost secondary role to the character conflicts. I did feel Nayir's progression in his conflicts toward women was much too fast. It served the story, but wasn't realistic.

FINDING NOUF (Mystery-Nayir al-Sharqi-Saudi Arabia-Contemp) ' G+
Ferraris, Zoë ' Standalone
Mariner Books, 2008, US Trade Paperback ' ISBN: 9780547137787

Also published under the title 'The Night of the Mir'aj '

Book1 in the Katya Hijazi series

This is an unusual and engaging detective mystery that takes us inside Saudi Arabia, to the heart of a society normally closed to outsiders, thus offering a fascinating and riveting glimpse into the stricter side of the Islamic culture.

The story is basically a run of the mill mystery but what makes it stand above many in its genre is the manner in which the author has conveyed her thoughts on a segment of Saudi life. This exquisitely written tale is told with respect, without judgement and from both female and male perspectives skilfully drawing the reader into the psyche of the author's finely portrayed protagonists.

The suspense starts with sixteen year old Nouf disappearing from her house days before her arranged marriage and under murky circumstances. Could she have been kidnapped or has she run away? Her brother Othman seeks help from his trusted friend Nayir and asks him to investigate. A week into the investigation, Nayir and his Bedouin comrades discover Nouf's body in the desert outside Jeddah, but this leaves many questions to be answer. The coroner quickly rules Nouf's death an accident but lab assistant, Katya Hijazi, feels there is more to the story and shares her thoughts with Nayir. The fact that Nouf was pregnant and had defensive wounds sets off alarm bells, how can this be considered an accident? Katya and Nayir lead the reader through a maze of Saudi customs to find out what really happened...

'Finding Nouf' is fast paced and loaded with twists and turns, very entertaining and captivating from start to finish

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