Within a closed Saudi Arabia kingdom, an unexceptional man, Sayeed, finds happiness with Lalifa, a girl who might have been beyond his reach had widowhood and misfortune not brought her within it. But soon the struggle to make a decent life for his new wife and her child amidst heat, dirt, and squalor form the backdrop of tragedy, one fueled by pretty jealousy, sexual desire, and religious fervor.

Mirage was published in England in 1999 at the author's own expense. It emerged from that year's Booker Prize deliberations the unexpected favorite of a number of the judges, just missing the final short-list. Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of the London Independent, chose it as his Book of the Year, saying "we need novels as lucid, moving, and compassionate as this one.