A critic of my new novel asked me recently why I hadn't written a book about the day to day ups and downs of my life in AbuDhabi, and instead chose to write, Bloody Flies, a series of episodes that chronicle the collapse of an expats life.
The answer is simple: the idea of a day to day middle-class soap opera about AbuDhabi bores me to tears. It is much more interesting for me and for my readers to read something that is full of drama and conflict, and that fairly reflects what it must be like to loose a child in a foreign environment.
Besides, what makes Abu Dhabi, and the rest of the UAE, interesting to me is its issues. Abu Dhabi is, in lots of ways, Dickensian. The Emirate is extremely wealthy but is home to extreme poverty; it provides opportunity but due to its racially driven class system also throws up many barriers. The City is a melting pot and life in such a place never runs smoothly for eveyone.
For western middle-class people, like me, life is good. But if we choose to open our eyes to what is around us, almost one hundred percent of the time, we might also choose to acknowledge our complicty. AbuDhabi is not just about the wealth of Emiratis and Westerners: it is also about the poverty of Pakistanis, Fillipinos, Ethiopians, Indians and Bangladeshis.
Buy Bloody Flies at http://www.andrewjkeir.net/bloody-flies.html
The answer is simple: the idea of a day to day middle-class soap opera about AbuDhabi bores me to tears. It is much more interesting for me and for my readers to read something that is full of drama and conflict, and that fairly reflects what it must be like to loose a child in a foreign environment.
Besides, what makes Abu Dhabi, and the rest of the UAE, interesting to me is its issues. Abu Dhabi is, in lots of ways, Dickensian. The Emirate is extremely wealthy but is home to extreme poverty; it provides opportunity but due to its racially driven class system also throws up many barriers. The City is a melting pot and life in such a place never runs smoothly for eveyone.
For western middle-class people, like me, life is good. But if we choose to open our eyes to what is around us, almost one hundred percent of the time, we might also choose to acknowledge our complicty. AbuDhabi is not just about the wealth of Emiratis and Westerners: it is also about the poverty of Pakistanis, Fillipinos, Ethiopians, Indians and Bangladeshis.
Buy Bloody Flies at http://www.andrewjkeir.net/bloody-flies.html
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