Latifa is raised in a quiet household shaped by absence and restraint. Orphaned early and brought up under the firm authority of her aunt, she learns how to live carefully, measuring each word and gesture.

Intelligent and determined, Latifa dreams of education and a life shaped by her own will. When a marriage is arranged without her consent, her prospects close in. What follows is a life bound by obligation and secrecy, where endurance becomes an inner discipline and learning a private refuge.

Set in mid-twentieth-century Abu Dhabi, Daughter of the Rain is an intimate and affecting novel of womanhood, agency and resilience. Maryam Al Ghfeli writes with restraint and insight, giving voice to a woman whose experience, rooted in its time and place, carries a lasting emotional force.

This is a novel about what it takes to remain oneself when choice is limited and the future is decided by others.