Novel in Saudi Arabia at twentieth century

This study, which is titled Novels in Twentieth Century Saudi Arabia, firstly examines novel as a West originated literary genre in general framework, then deals with the historical developing process of Arabian novel and its basic features. The second part, forming the main body of this study, mentions the history of Saudi Arabia and Saudi literature's major lines, then focuses on reasons which effected the processes of emergence and maturation of Saudi novels. The first part dedicates to describe in details the distance covered and turning points passed by Saudi novels which handled in three periods: Emergence, progress and maturation. The part contains the emergence period, firstly mentions al-Tawaman, accepted as the first novel of Saudi literature, then speaks of Works published in this era. The second period started with Hamid Damanhuri's Saman al-Tadhiya, considered as the real birth date of Saudi literature, is criticised in the context of Saudi novel's structural transformation process, also authors and their books contributed to this process. As for the third stage, which started in 1980 and have been going on today, the change and transformation process which Saudi novels underwent is dealt with by three subtitles. The second part of study touches the artistic features of Saudi novels and its outstanding aspects. Finally, the biographies of notable authors of Saudi literature who have the famous works and are respected the cornerstones of Saudi literature are narrated, and their novels briefly analyzed in terms of structure and theme.