The Dove's Necklace Novel

The Dove's Necklace Novel is a Saudi novel by Raja'a Alem. It was published in 2010 and won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction 'Booker' jointly during its fourth session in 2011. It is the second Saudi novel to win this prize. The novel depicts aspects of Makkan social life and has been translated into five languages: German, English, Italian, Polish, and French.

The Dove's Necklace novel adopts a multi-voice narrative technique, telling diverse stories in which places and times, surreal and realistic contexts intermingle. The narrative voices shift between characters and levels, starting with an unconventional narrator, who describes himself as 'Abu al-Ru'ous', which is nothing but a narrow alley in a poor neighborhood. The narrator's voice then changes between real people, delving accurately into the inner worlds of a dilapidated, impoverished neighborhood in Makkah al-Mukarramah City, inhabited by the uneducated lower class.

The Dove's Necklace novel can be categorized as a type of epistolary novel, as it incorporates a collection of pre-written letters. They are directly related to the main plot but it's unclear whether these letters were written by the victim or others. These letters form smaller internal structures in the novel, contributing to a non-linear temporal space.

The novel also features a series of articles expressing the frustration of 'Yusef', the neighborhood's only educated resident, over the loss of Makkan neighborhoods' identity, landmarks, and spiritual value due to the greed of businessmen and their unlawful seizure of Makkan lands.

Additionally, the author incorporates legendary folklore into the novel by introducing mythological characters such as the 'Yemeni Sheikh' who arrives from Yemen to recover the 'key', a central focus of one of the chapters. The novel concludes with an open-ended narrative, as each story is interrupted by another, leaving no definitive ending.

The plot of The Dove's Necklace novel is divided into two nearly separate narratives in terms of scenarios and events that converge at the novel's ending. The first part revolves around the criminal investigation of a woman's dead body found lying between two walls in an old neighborhood. 'Nasir', the assigned detective, searches for the causes of her death. Through interrogating various suspects from the neighborhood, the narrative branches out into multiple subplots which are the stories of these suspects. The novel explores deep trends of their past and aspects of their lives

The second part of the novel focuses on the story of 'Noura' a woman living in a luxurious hotel in Spain. She is married to a businessman who played a significant role in the first part. He was revealed as the owner of one of the companies involved in the demolition of historical landmarks in Makkah al-Mukarramah. This story delves into the realms of fantasy and mythology as Noura's husband searches for 'a key' that can unlock the doors of the world and grant him ultimate power. It also revolves around a 'historical document', a sacred text from his Jewish lineage that lives within a Saudi tribe.