Emirati author writes about love in the UAE

This content was originally posted in 7DAYS UAE website at: Emirati author writes about love in the UAE An Emirati author is hoping that her debut romantic novel will offer English speakers a little insight into the culture and traditions of her country. In ‘From The Capital With Love’, the lead character Camellia struggles with her emotions after meeting a male Emirati compatriot while studying in Australia. The book is a great insight into local culture in terms of the food, drink, clothes and other material norms. But the author, a trained lawyer who writes under the pen name ‘Daawy’, explains why she wanted to shine a light on cultural issues such as arranged marriage, family pressure, repressed feelings and reputation. She says: “One of the big factors for me was to write about our traditional values and cultures – in the modern world. “I wanted to write about customs and traditions and culture, for people who did not read Arabic. “We have a very big gap, for people from the outside and outside Asia who might not understand our customs and traditions. They don’t have a lot of Arabs (writers) channelling this (material)  in English.” The characters and plot are purely fictional. Without giving too much away, it’s fair to say that Camellia has something of a roller-coaster journey. By telling this tale, Daawy was trying to shine a light on the problems younger Emiratis may face. She says: “If the characters were not from the UAE but elsewhere, the girl who goes through heartache has family and friends with her, so it is much easier to move on. But in our part of the world, what she is doing (a relationship with a stranger) is wrong and if she spoke about it, everyone is going to go against her and judge her.” So far, the feedback has been good. Daawy, herself a happily married mother of three, says: “One girl asked me ‘how did you have the courage to write it, because we have a lot of similar thoughts’. But I told her I didn’t feel like I was being brave because I didn’t use vulgar words and most of the conversations were based on dialogue. I did this out of respect for my tradition and my culture and my country.”     chris.fraser@7days.ae Read the original story at: Emirati author writes about love in the UAE