Saudi Arabia - 'The Girls of Riyadh'

This is causing quite a stir.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Gay teenagers, predatory lesbians, women drinking alcohol at weddings, husbands with unsavoury sexual demands.

With characters like that, "The Girls of Riyadh" is not your run-of-the-mill depiction of life in Muslim Saudi Arabia, one of the world's most restricted and conservative societies.

Though technically banned here, Rajaa al-Sanie's frank and sometimes shocking insight into the closed world of Saudi women is making waves four months after its publication in Beirut.

Local press commentators have asked the young Saudi to disown the book for besmirching women in the conservative kingdom and interviewers on Saudi-owned satellite channels have accused her of portraying its men as boorish bores.

But many young people using popular Internet chat rooms have praised Sanie's debut novel for its honesty. Prominent writers have lauded the work as part of a new trend which, through focussing on the psychology of the individual, suggests that human needs come above the demands of society and religion.

It's good to see people finally speaking out and exposing Islam - faster please.
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