Susanne Koelbl is an award-winning journalist and a military and foreign correspondent for the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Her stories highlight the intricate dynamics in conflict areas and wars around the world, including the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Koelbl is known for her probing reports from Syria, Afghanistan and North Korea. Her highly acclaimed book Dark Beloved Country: People and Power in Afghanistan. was published in 2009.

Always close to the people, Koelbl uses their voices to make complicated political and societal contexts accessible. For her in-depth and thorough reporting she received several industry recognitions, including the Liberty Award and the Henry-Nannen-Price award. In her exceptional interviews with state leaders, intelligence-chiefs and Islamic extremists, Koelbl repeatedly challenges the powerful, including the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir (wanted for genocide with an international arrest warrant), or the underground Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Koelbl has excellent contacts in all political camps in the Middle East.

Koelbl is a fellow of the Bertelsmann Foundation's German-Israeli Young Leaders Program, a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan and was named a Media Ambassador with the German-Chinese Exchange Program of the Bosch Foundation at Tsingua University in Beijing. As a Knight Wallace Fellow, Koelbl gave guest lectures in 2012 on the war in Syria and the forty-year Afghanistan crisis. As a Knight Wallace alumni Koelbl is connected and tied into top influential media outlets in the US.

The author has been travelling to Saudi Arabia since 2011. Most recently she lived in Riyadh during 2018-2019. She currently resides in Berlin, Germany.

Prologue
Foreword

Welcome to the Salafists: How My Landlord Tries to Save Me from Satan
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: Time of the Bulldozer
Life under the Abaya: Black or Black?
Complex Family Affairs
Car Cowboys
The Men's Running Group, or How Mr. Zayd Lost His Groove
Brief Escapes: The Malls
We'll Get You: Death of a Dissident
In the North: With the Proud Shammar, Where Men Can Still Be Men
In the East: With the Shia, Where Oil and Trouble Can Be Found
Alcohol: How the Buzz Gets into the Bottle
The Crown Jewels: Oil, Power, Money
Bandar, the Black Prince: Saudi Arabia's Secret Weapon
Seven Dates a Day Keep the Devil Away
The Royals: A Terrifyingly Nice Family
The Faustian Pact of Diriyah
The Magic Scent of Wood and Sweat
Qatar: My Brother, My Foe
The Magic of Batha
How Little Karim Tried to Solve the Yemen Crisis
Richard of Arabia: Making the Desert Bloom
Blue Gold
Forbidden Love among the Wahhabis
Brave Women
Osama bin Laden's Bomb-Making Instructor Reveals All
Birthday with Evil Spirits
Marriage, a Straitjacket
Room for a Single Woman, Please
Sheep in Wolf's Clothing
Liberated Art
The Beauty of Al-Ahsa through the Eyes of Abdullah
The Revolution Comes Too Late for Pious Jamila

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Timeline of Saudi History
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
¿About the Author