Finding Nouf Characters

Katya Hijazi is a main character in the novel Finding Nouf by Zoe Ferraris. Katya’s first name is Russian and she was named after her father’s childhood friend’s deceased wife who was a Russian emigrant. Katya is twenty-eight years old (120) and she was Othman’s fiancé (38). She lives with her father, Abu, who quit his job at a chemical plant and went into retirement after his wife, Katya’s mother, passed away (117). Her can be very traditional at times, but he deeply cares about his daughter more. He shows it when he agrees to let Katya work at the crime lab (119). He also does not fully approve of Othman (120). Katya met Othman at her best friend’s wedding. When they first saw each other, Katya didn’t have her burqa down, but Othman did not

Then after four months Othman kissed her and asked her to be marry him a few weeks after that (123 - 124). Katya did go to college and graduated with a Ph.D. in molecular biology from King Abdul Aziz University. Despite having a Ph.D., Katya still couldn’t do much since she is a woman (118). So she got a job as a chemistry tutor for high school of all girls. When Katya and Abu couldn’t quite pay all their bills, she applied for a position in the city’s crime lab (117). There she works as a laboratory technician, although she was helping with examining women’s bodies at the beginning of the novel (13). Katya seems to feel awkward and out of place when talking to Othman’s sisters and other female relatives. She had hoped that over time her relationship with the other Shrawi women would get better, but they simply have very little in common with them (174). Nayir describe Katya as bold in the beginning of the novel (20). When Katya first meets Nayir, she really didn’t like him because he seemed to uptight and traditional (127). By the end of the novel she opens up to him goes to him for comfort when she discovered that Othman was the father of Nouf’s baby (258 -