Keija Parssinen on her Saudi childhood, angry poems, and a wannabe despot
On the NYR Daily this week
On Friday we published Keija Parssinen’s memoir about her upbringing in Saudi Arabia,
where her father worked for Aramco, the oil giant that has, in effect,
defined the US–Saudi relationship ever since the end of World War II.
Her essay tackles the profound difficulty of reconciling the many
ambiguities of that experience: idyllic childhood vs. colonial
privilege, love of country and its people vs. transactional geopolitical
alliance, democracy vs. autocracy, human rights vs. theocratic
repression, and so on. All through the filter of family and home.
Photo by Kris Brunelli
