When people publish stories about the U.A.E., the country is almost always represented entirely by Dubai, which itself is almost always reduced to a glitzy, two-dimensional backdrop: a suitably strange, foreign Elsewhere, chock-full of easy signifiers of the “very old” (dark-skinned men in robes, desert sand) and the “futuristic” (Lamborghinis, postmodern architecture). It appears most commonly in mysteries and thrillers—the perfect dash of exotic spice to liven up a visitor’s investigation into some globe-spanning conspiracy.