Arab migration to the Gulf unfurled in the midst of manifold political and economic changes and had crucial social ramifications all over the Arab world. Through the examination of a selection of Arabic migration narratives set from the 1970s onwards, this monograph asks: how have Arab writers responded to this phenomenon and what are the thematic and formal characteristics of literary attempts to represent the rarely acknowledged and complex affects that have been generated in subjective experiences of Gulf migration? By foregrounding centre–periphery dynamics within the Arab world, the analysis decentres the emphasis on the encounter with the ‘West’ in scholarship on migration in Arab literature and culture. It challenges prevailing discourses on the Gulf and demonstrates the role of fiction in nuancing essentialist images of a uniform Gulf migrant experience.