Rajaa al-Sanea
Saudi writer
Rajaa al-Sanea (رجاء بنت عبد الله الصانع; born in 1981, on 11 September) is a Saudi Arabian writer who became famous through her novel Girls of Riyadh (بنات الرياض Banāt al-Riyāḍ). The book was first published in Lebanon in 2005 and in English in 2007. Al-Sanea grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the daughter of a family of doctors. As of 2014, she is currently an assistant professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Education
She received her bachelor's degree in dentistry from King Saud University in 2005. She continued her education in the United States with the support of the King Abdullah scholarship program. In 2008, Al-Sanea received her master's degree in oral sciences from University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry.
Career
Al-Sanea rose to prominence in 2005 via the publication of her debut novel Girls of Riyadh. The story follows the love lives of four young women, Gamrah, Lamees, Sadeem and Michelle –who is half Saudi and half American- through the form of a series of emails written by an unnamed narrator. Upon publication, the novel was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia, as the depiction of infidelity, pre-marital relations and homosexuality was seen as inflammatory material.
The public source identifies “Rajaa al-Sanea” as saudi writer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Rajaa, al-Sanea and Saudi.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2735307. VIAF identifies the subject as 34762579. The Library of Congress control number is no2006023433. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 2005, 2007 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rajaa al-Sanea” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.