Abdul Rahman bin Ibrahim al-Munif (Arabic: عَبْد الرَّحْمٰن بِن إِبْرَاهِيم المُنِيف; May 29, 1933 – January 24, 2004), also known as Abdelrahman Munif, was a novelist, short story writer, memoirist, journalist, thinker, and cultural critic.
[6] He began writing in the 1970s after he left his job with the Iraqi ministry, quit the Ba'ath party, and moved to Damascus, Syria, removing himself from a regime he opposed.
The Cities of Salt quintet followed the evolution of the Arabian Peninsula as its traditional Bedouin culture was transformed by the oil boom.
The quintet begins with Mudun al-Milh (مدن الملح, Cities of Salt, 1984), depicting the desert oasis of Wadi al-Uyoun as it is transformed and destroyed by the arrival of Western oilmen, a story similar to that of the disrupted village of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.
The quintet continues with Al-ukhdud (1985;The Trench), Taqasim al-layl wa-al-nahar (1989; Variations on Night and Day), Al-munbatt (1989; The Uprooted), and Badiyat al zulumat (1989; The Desert of Darkness).
Cities of Salt was described by Edward Said as the "only serious work of fiction that tries to show the effect of oil, Americans and the local oligarchy on a Gulf country.