My Desert Kingdom

(Paperback)

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Saudi Arabia is a place with a climate from hell, a country where public beheadings are commonplace, where outsiders are unwelcome. Yet somehow its very inaccessibility has fascinated generations of travellers. Wherever we are told we cannot go, our imaginations run wild.' When Jill Koolmees follows her husband to Saudi Arabia, she is in for a journey that challenges her beliefs, her marriage, even her sanity. Share her voyage of discovery through desert oasis, souk and shopping mall, and meet a cast of characters that includes housemaids and pilgrims, fanatics and princes. Above all, there are the women of Arabia. From her first tentative attempts at contact to letting go at an all-woman disco, Koolmees gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the veil. 'Tell them about us,' urge her new friends, and in this recounting of the joys and challenges of their lives, she fulfils her promise. A uniquely personal and timely portrait of a region under the international spotlight, MY DESERT KINGDOM offers a rare insight into a hidden world.

Author Bio

Dutch-Australian Jill Koolmees grew up on a flower farm in the hills east of Melbourne. After graduating in Politics, Literature and Education, she took to the road, working as a Jill-of-all-trades to fund her travels to places as far flung as Morocco, India, Japan and the USA. Upon her return to Australia at the start of the 1990s, she became an English language teacher. She lives with her husband in North Melbourne, where she tends a rampant garden and dreams of her next journey.