Ghanem’s Forbidden Love in the Land of Sheba: Rereading Violence in the Shadows of Dictatorship

Designating Ghanem’s Forbidden Love in the Land of Sheba as a Yemeni-Canadian novel, the current study examines the author’s political, cultural, and social preoccupations with his homeland, Yemen. As an immigrant writer in Canada, he describes the horrific violence, injustice, corruption, and exploitation that have destroyed the entire country. The rereading of violence in the shadows of tyranny is the novelist’s perspective to probe into the problematic roots of Arab Spring and the confidential reality of the past events that lead to the ghastly current consequences. Bringing out the novel’s political concerns, the investigation employs many fictional characters and incidents from the novel within their historical contexts. It concludes that the story is a resistant discourse project that conveys the neglected voice of the unprivileged Yemenis to the world.