Behind the Kingdom's Veil

Susanne Koelbl is an award-winning journalist and a military and foreign correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Her stories highlight the intricate dynamics in conflict areas and wars around the world, including the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Koelbl is known for her probing reports from Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea. Her highly acclaimed book Dark Beloved Country: People and Power in Afghanistan. was published in 2009.Always close to the people, Koelbl uses their voices to make complicated political and societal contexts accessible. For her in-depth and thorough reporting she received several industry recognitions, including the Liberty Award and the Henry-Nannen-Price award. In her exceptional interviews with state leaders, intelligence-chiefs and Islamic extremists, Koelbl repeatedly challenges the powerful, including the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (wanted for genocide with an international arrest warrant), or the underground Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Koelbl has excellent contacts in all political camps in the Middle East.Koelbl is a fellow of the Bertelsmann Foundation's German-Israeli Young Leaders Program, a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan and was named a Media Ambassador with the German-Chinese Exchange Program of the Bosch Foundation at Tsingua University in Beijing. As a Knight Wallace Fellow, Koelbl gave guest lectures in 2012 on the war in Syria and the forty-year Afghanistan crisis. As a Knight Wallace alumni Koelbl is connected and tied into top influential media outlets in the US.The author has been travelling to Saudi Arabia since 2011. Most recently she lived in Riyadh during 2018-2019. She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.Karen Elliott House (1947-) was born in Matador, Texas, population 900. She earned a BJ degree at UT Austin where she discovered the world of news reporting on the student newspaper. She was a reporter, foreign editor and finally publisher of The Wall Street Journal, where she won a Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for her reporting on the Middle East. Her first book, "On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines--and Future," published by Knopf in 2012 is a portrait of Saudi society and culture and examines the fragility of the ruling regime. The book repesents three decades of reporting in this shrouded kingdom. She currently resides in Boston, MA.

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• Table of Contents Prologue Foreword Welcome to the Salafists: How My Landlord Tries to Save Me from Satan Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: Time of the Bulldozer Life under the Abaya: Black or Black? Complex Family Affairs Car Cowboys The Men’s Running Group, or How Mr. Zayd Lost His Groove Brief Escapes: The Malls We’ll Get You: Death of a Dissident In the North: With the Proud Shammar, Where Men Can Still Be Men In the East: With the Shia, Where Oil and Trouble Can Be Found Alcohol: How the Buzz Gets into the Bottle The Crown Jewels: Oil, Power, Money Bandar, the Black Prince: Saudi Arabia’s Secret Weapon Seven Dates a Day Keep the Devil Away The Royals: A Terrifyingly Nice Family The Faustian Pact of Diriyah The Magic Scent of Wood and Sweat Qatar: My Brother, My Foe The Magic of Batha How Little Karim Tried to Solve the Yemen Crisis Richard of Arabia: Making the Desert BloomBlue GoldForbidden Love among the WahhabisBrave WomenOsama bin Laden’s Bomb-Making Instructor Reveals AllBirthday with Evil SpiritsMarriage, a StraitjacketRoom for a Single Woman, PleaseSheep in Wolf’s ClothingLiberated ArtThe Beauty of Al-Ahsa through the Eyes of AbdullahThe Revolution Comes Too Late for Pious JamilaEpilogueAcknowledgmentsTimeline of Saudi HistoryGlossarySelected Bibliography​About the Author