Why a Booktrail?
2000s – Can an English woman ever be at home in the Middle East?
The Gulf Between Us
What you need to know before your trail
Imagine the scene – you’re a single mother to three boys, have some strange and somewhat unwelcome feelings for an ex boyfriend who is now swanning around the world as an international film star and an old father who ‘ just wants to know why you’re not married’. There’s even more to contend with – other annoying people but you try to carry on.
In the small Gulf emirate of Hawar, this is the life of Annie Lester. It’s 2002 and the Iraq war is having an effect on everyone and everything but it’s the war about to break out closer to home that’s the real issue.
Locations
Reset- Bahrain
- A: Hawar
- United Arab Emirates
- B: Dubai - Dubai Pearl
- C: Dubai - BurJuman shopping mall
Travel Guide
Hawar – now both a real and a fictional place but not in the UAE as featured in the novel. There are many things invented of course as in every fictional novel and it’s fun to see what is and isn’t real. Hawar here is a Gulf emirate, but it appears rather differently in this book since it is in reality part of the archipelago owned by Bahrain. Some places within and around Hawar also appear to be fictional. Still the location is the Middle East, the Gulf and the Gulf between us of course.
Hawar is the meeting point for British expats and locals, bigoted brothers and gay sons. the title refers to a gulf between us and that which exists between these groups and more are the ones it refers to.
Hawar has many interesting facts about it –
“Apparently Hawar was the Garden of Eden. You can’t get more historic than that”
In fact a lot of the setting looks at several characters dealing with their sexuality and finding their place in Hawari society. Sexuality is taboo here and certainly the suggestion that someone could be gay is dangerous talk. So the setting is one of danger and suspicion amidst the enclosed muslim society. Furthermore, there’s a militant Shia cleric who is becoming increasingly influential….
But Hawar never fails to surprise Annie –
“Hawar is never knowingly underdressed – from the upscale ships in the Pear Mall and custom made clothes from the tailors in the souk”
Annie however struggles with life here for many reasons and her relationships with a former boyfriend does nothing to qualm her unease. She is a western woman in a strange land dealing with some major issues
She gives quite the view of UAE society!
Where Next?
