[1] This success took the author by surprise: she recounts that she had never planned to write, and in school she wasn't extraordinary in the subject.
Asrār ʿaʾilīyah was the first Tunisian Arabic novel written by a woman.
It is part of a recent trend of Tunisian novels published in the vernacular language rather than Standard Arabic.
It tells the story of Ghalia, a young mother of two who, in the first chapter, leaves her restrictive husband.
In the course of her struggle, we meet several other characters—Ghalia's husband, her sister and disabled nephew, a very intelligent but disadvantaged woman who works as a prostitute, and others—many of whom talk directly to the reader, telling their stories in the first person.