Film alum Mo Ogrodnik '96 has published her cinematic debut novel, Gulf, with Simon & Schuster/Summit (US). The novel follows five women with vastly different origins—from the Philippines to Ethiopia to New York City—whose lives bring them to the Arabian Gulf, where they collide with devastating and profound consequences.
Told through a prism of female voices, the polyphonic story seeks to spotlight the stories of five women struggling to overcome the challenges of a patriarchal society and a rigid class hierarchy.
In a starred review for BookPage, reviewer Freya Sachs said: “These women are nuanced and complicated, and their strengths and flaws, which lead them toward compliance or defiance, are tautly felt in the prose….[The] five voices are jarring, surprising, compelling and deeply human.”
"Gulf is instantly gripping," added Pulitzer Prize Winning novelist Jennifer Egan, "a hurtling, sensory plunge into the lives of women in crisis whose worlds come to overlap in unexpected ways. Mo Ogrodnik is a gifted, arresting newcomer to the literary landscape."
Mo Ogrodnik is a filmmaker, writer, and professor in the film department at NYU. She was the Associate Dean of the Arts for NYU in Abu Dhabi and the director of FIND, a creative lab exploring the transnational heritage of the UAE. She’s served as a mentor for the Sundance Labs in Jordan and received fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell.
The book is available for purchase here.
