The Salmiya collection : stories of the life and times of modern Kuwait

Abstract

In The Salmiya Collection, Loomis celebrates the essence of everyday life in a little-known part of the world. With lucid prose and keen detail, these stories offer nuanced portraits—tragicomic, bittersweet, and candid—of ordinary Kuwaitis: expatriates and natives, students and professors, siblings and lovers. In "Ancient Civilization 101," a young man suspects his girlfriend Mariam is unfaithful and, in a fury, shears her long hair when the confidence and boldness that first attracted him to her becomes a threat. In "The Conference on Rights and Freedom," two young students invited to present their paper at an academic conference in the United States share with their professor their dramatic plan to "show them who we are."

Each of the forty-six stories in the collection resonates with the others, illuminating a world that will linger with the reader long after the last sentence. Loomis renders a Kuwaiti society that is complex and distinct, while his characters and situations unveil a time and a place that is universal.