The four novellas find their inspiration in the sands and streets of Abu Dhabi, where author Raymond Beauchemin lived for four years, a time that overlapped with the building of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums and the opening of Sorbonne and NYU campuses, the convulsions of the Arab Spring and the eruption of civil war in Syria.

The four novellas in The Emptiest Quarter find their inspiration in this place and these years, which overlapped with the Arab Spring and the beginnings of the civil war in Syria. Questions of identity - who they are as a nation, as a people, as Arabs, as Sunni Muslims - were central in the discussion taking place at the time. You could see it in the attempts to preserve heritage, but also in the openness to western ideas: the opening of the Louvre and Guggenheim, for instance, the growing number of western universities, such as the Sorbonne and NYU, with Abu Dhabi branches. The challenge for the country and those responsible for its rapid growth will be how they honour the rights of 85 per cent of their population, the people doing the actual building and serving: the labourers, nannies, maids, bookkeepers, etc. ... the millions from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, who keep the country running and thriving.