Saudi Arabian culture mainly revolves around the religion of Islam. Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, are located in the country. Saudi Arabia's cultural heritage is celebrated at the annual Jenadriyah cultural festival.

Some Saudi novelists have had their books published in Beirut, Lebanon, because of censorship in Saudi Arabia. Despite signs of increasing openness, Saudi novelists and artists in film, theatre, and the visual arts face greater restrictions on their freedom of expression than in the West. Contemporary Saudi novelists include: Abdelrahmane Munif (censored and exiled, now deceased), Turki al-Hamad (subject of a fatwā and death threats, his books have sold up to 20, 000 copies underground), PEN award-winner Ali al-Domaini (in jail), Ahmed Abodehman (now writes in French), Raja'a Alem, Abdullah Al-Qasemi, Hani Nakshabandi.

Rajaa Alsanea, author of best-selling and highly controversial novel Girls of Riyadh is the most notorious member of a new generation of young women writers that includes the poet and academic Fawziyya Abu Khalid, and the pseudonymous Siba al Harez, author of a novel about the life of young lesbians in the Kingdom.

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