In 1984, the renowned and controversial Saudi writer Abdul Rahman Munif published Cities of Salt, the first part of a five-volume novel that was a thinly veiled criticism of the haste with which Western concepts of modernity were adopted in Gulf states after the discovery of oil.
Munif, who had lived in three of the traditional Arab centers — Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus — explained the title of the book in reference to the Gulf's oil cities, saying, “'Cities of salt' means cities that offer no sustainable existence. When the waters come in, the first waves will dissolve the salt and reduce these great glass cities to dust.”
