I Want Golden Eyes: Futuristic YA Sci-Fi from the Middle East

I Want Golden Eyes, by Maria Dadouch, trans. M. Lynx Qualey and Sawad Hussain (Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Austin, 2025, 184 pp, ages 12-18)

In the year 2095, Quartzia is a sharply segregated city in which the majority of citizens—the Limited—live underground, in the Burrow. The privileged ruling class—the Goldens—live above ground in a city of quartz domes.

Supposedly, the factor that determines who lives where is IQ—whether one scores above or below 1111 at birth. Protagonist Diyala, however, uncovers suggestions that other factors are involved in the distribution of assets. Also tellingly, the Limiteds are forbidden to read; it turns out that reading raises one’s IQ.

In a disturbingly familiar configuration, the few privileged Goldens are dependent on the low-wage labor of the majority Limiteds. Diyala and her father and sister serve in the home of genetic scientist Professor Adam. When Adam discovers that Diyala has been sneaking his books into the Burrow when she goes home, her punishment is to become his property—an Indentured—for the next thirty months.

The plot could unfold anywhere, but Quartzia’s culture bears witness to the author’s Syrian nationality as well as the book’s setting.Located in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, the Comoros Islands themselves possess a fraught political identity both in history and in the present.

I Want Golden Eyes is an homage to the power of both knowledge and resistance. Surprising plot twists sustain reader interest, and futuristic projections—both imaginative and troubling—prompt reflection on current technology, economics, and sociology.

I’m not an expert on YA science fiction, but Golden Eyes summons up associations with titles like Uglies, Divergent, and Legend. Dadouch is an award-winning Syrian literary figure. Translators Qualey and Hussain  have each translated numerous titles from Arabic into English; they have also collaborated on the epistolary middle-grade Ghady & Rawan (reviewed here).