#UAEReads: A Kuwaiti’s Book Clubbing Adventures in the UAE

Posted on by Myra Garces-Bacsal

Fajer Bin Rashed Here.

The image of one escaping into the pages of a book by their own lonesome often describes reading for pleasure. This is because reading for pleasure is commonly perceived as an individual act. Even when performed publicly, it usually imitates the characteristics of individuality, like reading a book in a café or listening to an audible through headphone speakers while in public transport. Yet, book clubs could expand one’s literary horizons, in pushing one to read more than they usually would  or even to pick up books that they usually would not. Socially, they could teach readers about others’ reading habits, their favorite genres, and in a more general sense, their perspectives about life.

The Gathering Readers Book Club and the Emirates Literature Foundation (ELF) Book Club are two venues that did that for me.

Figure 1: My Personal Copy of Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor

I started my book clubbing journey in the UAE back in 2021 with Gathering Readers, a book club that had a virtual start during COVID-19 times and continue to be virtually active (sort-of).

As a PhD candidate, I feel privileged to have shared a safe space with my fellow UAEU students and professors in which the love for books has been genuinely embraced. To Gathering Readers, I am particularly grateful for pushing me to stretch my reading habits by suggesting a novel about math! Math was neither a school subject that I particularly enjoyed, nor was it a motif that I had read in previous novels.

For example, reading Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor not only expanded my genres of interest, but it also changed how I perceived math. Math in the novel is beautifully portrayed as one to sustain love, friendship, and relationship between a housekeeper, her son, and a math professor.

Similar to Gathering Readers, the ELF book club  pushed me to venture into genres different to my usual interests. In a setting surrounded by books, ELF holds its book club meetings once a month in one of the longest-running bookstore chains in the UAE, Magrudy’s, in Dubai.

Click on the image to be taken to the Khaleej Times feature of the ELF book club published last October 2023.

Magrudy’s has multiple branches located in different Emirates within the UAE. The books are often suggested by the organizers of the book club, who try to also include nonfiction titles in its canon of reads.

When in Magrudy’s (Al Ain).

As for fiction, I think I will always be grateful to the book club for introducing me to Aanchal Malhotra’s The Book of Everlasting Things.

The Book Of Everlasting Things 

Author: Aanchal Malhotra Language: English
Published by Flatiron Books (2022) ISBN: 9781250802026 (ISBN10: 1250802024). Guest contributor bought a copy of the book. 

I remember sharing my first impressions about the book during the book club meeting. One of which was that after reading the book jacket, I thought that the novel was going to be about an idiosyncratic love story between Samir and Firdaus, only to realize that on a bigger scale, their love story connects families in a multigenerational tale, with the India-Pakistan partition as a backdrop. It was a great follow-up to reading Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water, which epically portrays the story of multiple generations within the context of India.

I also remember mentioning, albeit slightly eccentric, that reading the book smelled too good! It touched a sense like no other book previously could. Perfume is personally perceived as a character, both living and growing in the pages of the book. My comment about the book smelling good, however, should not take away from the fragility of belonging: belonging to one’s land, to one’s identity, and to one’s family history as beautifully portrayed in the novel. Speaking about the book with likeminded readers, coming from diverse cultural backgrounds, made the experience much more authentic, genuine, interesting, and relatable. The book’s ideas and historical events were no longer abstract notions. They instead transformed into concrete realities, generously shared by readers in the session, who spoke about their families experiencing the same events.

I leave you with two images depicting my experience meeting the author, Aanchal Malhotra in the recently-concluded Emirates Literature Festival that took place in Dubai last 31 January to 06 February.

About the Author:

Based in Delhi, India, Aanchal Malhotra is a writer and an oral historian. Her two nonfiction books survey the generational impact of the 1947 partition.

The Book of Everlasting Things is her debut novel, in which she further explores the generational impact of the partition in a fictional narrative.

About the Guest Contributor for #UAEReads:

Fajer M. Bin Rashed is an avid reader and listener of books. One of the earliest childhood memories she has is of going to a bookstore with her mother and siblings in Kuwait. Fajer has a 13-year experience teaching English as a second language at the tertiary level in Kuwait. Her previous teaching posts include Australian University (formerly known as Australian College of Kuwait), Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST), Arab Open University (AOU), and The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET). She has a bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature and a master’s degree in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from Kuwait University and currently serves as a PhD candidate at United Arab Emirates University, specialized in Language and Literacy Studies. She is a published researcher and is an active reviewer for a multi- and interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal based on her expertise. Her research interests include (early) literacy education, language acquisition, language teacher and learner identity, bilingualism, multiculturalism, and social-emotional learning (SEL) in education.

 

It was mentioned in our Introductory Post for #UAEReads that we would also be featuring literature coming from the diverse demographic groups that make up the UAE community. And Malhotra’s The Book of Everlasting Things which features both Pakistani and Indian reality (comprising 40.18% of the population in the UAE, see breakdown of demographic groups above – see Global Media Insight source of demographics as of 2024) is a perfect book to feature for this month’s curation. Throughout the month, we will be featuring literature coming from the major nationalities comprising the entire country: Emiratis, Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos, Egyptians and other nationalities.

About the Guest Editor/Curator for March 2024 [#UAEReads]:

Myra Garces-Bacsal has served as a teacher educator for 15 years and has led several research projects on reading and social emotional learning, diverse picturebooks and teacher practices, psychology of high creatives and exceptional people, culturally responsive and inclusive education. She is a quintessential lover and creator of booklists (see her Social and Emotional Learning bookshelf here and other publications below). Myra serves as the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies with the College of Education, UAE University. She is a self-proclaimed nerd who lives and breathes books and enjoys organizing events and festivals where fellow nerds converge and attempt to joyfully change the world.

Publications on booklists:

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Tupas, R. (2023). A diverse social and emotional learning booklist for gifted learners and advanced readers. Roeper Review, 45(1), 25-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2022.2145397

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Al Ghufli, H. T., AlOwais, N. M., Baja, E. S., & Tupas, R. (2022). Using diverse picturebooks for inclusive practices and transformative pedagogies. In M. Efstratopoulou (Ed.), Rethinking Inclusion and Transformation in Special Education (pp. 72-92). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-4680-5.ch005

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2021). Of grit and gumption, sass and verve: What gifted students can learn from multicultural picture book biographies. In S. R. Smith’s Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 431-453). Singapore: Springer International Handbooks of Education. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-3041-4_18

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2020). Diverse books for diverse children: Building an early childhood diverse booklist for social and emotional learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(1), 66-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420901856