Gulf - Hardcover

by Mo Ogrodnik (Author)

Told through a prism of female voices, this cinematic novel follows five women of vastly different origins--from the Philippines to Ethiopia to New York City--whose lives bring them to the Arabian Gulf, where they collide with devastating and profound consequences.

Dounia, a young Saudi mother, finds herself alienated in a desolate, post-weather, air-conditioned modernist box and decides to rebel against all forms of domesticity. Flora, a Filipina domestic worker haunted by the flood that claimed her infant's life, navigates the perils of her boss's insurrection. Zeinah, a Syrian woman, seeks love within the confines of her arranged marriage to a jihadist and finds herself joining the female morality police. Justine, a white American curator, reckons with her own violence and ethical limitations when her life intersects with Eskedare, a spirited and defiant Ethiopian teenager whose dreams have dead-ended in the Gulf. Bold moves unlock vital consequences, each woman's journey con-fronting us with our own capacity for cruelty, rebellion, resilience--and hope.

Written with unsettling intimacy and determined empathy, Gulf exposes the stark realities of what happens when a woman's agency is stripped away and asks how far we will go in order to survive.

Author Biography

Mo Ogrodnik is a filmmaker, writer, and profes­sor in the film department at NYU. She was the associate dean of the arts for NYU in Abu Dhabi and the director of FIND, a creative lab exploring the transnational heritage of the UAE. She's served as a mentor for the Sundance Labs in Jordan and received fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell.