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In 1988, Ms. Mantel published “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street,” a novel based on her bleak life in Saudi Arabia, followed a year later by “Fludd,” about religious belief in a northern England community in the 1950s.

Creepy and claustrophobic, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street is a gothic masterpiece, and as with all great gothic texts, the reader has to forswear comfort, surrender confidence, become like Frances Shore herself – not sure, in fact.

Those early novels, beginning with Every Day Is Mother’s Day in 1985, and looping through Vacant Possession, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, in which she drew on time spent living in Saudi Arabia, and An Experiment in Love, explored among other things the troublesome double-binds in which women frequently find themselves.

In “Eight Months on Ghazzah Street,” her novel about an Englishwoman who moves to Jeddah with her husband, Hilary Mantel—an Englishwoman who moved to Jeddah with her husband, in 1983—describes the protagonist’s efforts to learn Arabic.

Name of country: conventional long form: none conventional short form: Gaza Strip local long form: none local short form: Qita Ghazzah Data code: GZ Economy ———- Economic overview: In 1991 roughly 40% of Gaza Strip workers were employed across the border by Israeli industrial, construction, and agricultural enterprises, with worker remittances supplementing GDP by roughly 50%.