Eid in Dubai: "Minutes from the Miracle City" by Omar Sabbagh

Eid in Dubai 

Minutes from the Miracle City by Omar Sabbagh

A book review

Oxford-based publisher Fairlight Books was established in June 2017 with the aim of promoting “high-quality writing and beautiful books”.   What is particularly notable about this publisher is its support of concise forms:  short stories, flash fiction and novellas.  Indeed, one of its more successful of its projects is the “Fairlight Moderns” range, described on the publisher’s website as “new short modern fictions from around the world”.  The set of five titles issued in 2018 included Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn, a magical-realist “novella-in-flash” set in 1970s Communist Romania which has since been longlisted for The Women’s Prize for Fiction, The Republic of Consciousness Prize and The People’s Book Prize. 

Minutes from the Miracle City is being published in July 2019 as part of a new clutch of “Fairlight Moderns”.    The “Miracle City” of the title is Dubai, which has grown out of the hot desert into a business hub characterized by striking high-rise architecture and designer shopping malls.  In my language it is said that money can build a road in the sea – apparently, it can also build bustling cities in the desert.  For an outsider (such as myself) this blatant show of wealth easily gives the impression that this is a materialistic, soulless place.  But in this novella, Omar Sabbagh, a poet and critic who lives in Dubai, suggests that this is not the case.  Through journalist Saaed, back to his homeland after a stint in London, Sabbagh voices the following observation…

“He’d read the romantics, and indeed believed that they, with their infamous ethos, had done the modern world a good deal of damage.  For example, Dubai was often dubbed to be a ‘superficial” place.  But such pat judgments, automatisms almost, proved obtuse.  It was since romanticism that people had got into their heads that superficies were pejorative; it was the influence of the romantics that had led people to forget the integrity of appearances, hunting as they always were for some elusive, supposedly authentic ‘depth’.  No, to reach the true essence of a thing, one had to go via appearance…”

Sabbagh challenges the readers’ “pat judgments, automatisms” through what can be considered a “choral” work.  Indeed, although Saaed (and his ruminations about Dubai, love, religion and nearly everything) eventually take centre stage, the novella weaves together the individual stories of several characters, including Ugandan brothers Patrick and Edouard, Philippine supermarket cashier Ricardo and his young family, Moroccan beautician Farida, and well-off English couple Rachel and Oliver.  Over the final days of Ramadan, we follow them around the city, as they try to build (and in some cases, rebuild) their lives, just as Dubai took shape on the sands and grew into a vibrant cosmopolitan city. 

The Dubai Skyline in 2010 (Wikimedia Commons - Jan Michael Pfeiffer)

In the opening chapters, the rapid switch between the different characters was rather dizzying – I felt as if I were watching a film with rapid camerawork alighting from one actor to another.  Perhaps Sabbagh purposely wished to convey this effect – indeed, in the acknowledgements at the end, he credits his wife Faten Yaacoub’s “filmic mind” as an influence on his writing.  As for myself, I felt I got a better grip on the novella once the links between the various characters started falling into place.    The writing is insightful, often poetic and, when Saaed speaks, quite philosophical.  There are, admittedly, some awkward stylistic gear-changes when the characters switch to informal dialogue after passages of “heightened” language.  (Incidentally, I was surprised to find the word “chinwag” used no less than three times in what is ultimately a short book). 

The book also broaches other interesting topics – for instance, the challenges facing young practising Muslims as they balance faith and tradition with living in the contemporary world.    But it’s all done with a light touch.   Cynics may huff that this portrayal of Dubai is too rose (or gold?) tinted.   But why not? The book, culminating in the different characters each celebrating Eid in their own way, is ultimately a thinking person’s feel-good novel and is none the worse for that.    

Paperback, 144 pages

Expected publication: July 11th 2019 by Fairlight Books

Night in Dubai City by Guido Borelli