Hissa Hilal, also known under the pseudonym Remia, is a Saudi poet from a Bedouin community in Northwest Saudi Arabia. When she was 11 years old, she began writing poetry as a form of expression but because of financial reasons, she was unable to attend university after she completed her secondary schooling in Bahrain. In 1993, under the pseudonym Remia, she published The Language of Sand Heap, one of her first collections of poetry. A number of her poems were also published in Saudi newspapers and magazines and eventually Hissa began working as the poetry editor of al-Hayat, a pan Arab newspaper.

Hissa rose to fame in 2010 when she was featured on season 4 of Million’s Poet, a televised poetry competition in the UAE. Her most famous poem in the competition was The Chaos of Fatwas, which offered a scathing critique of conservative Muslim clerics for the culture of terror they imposed on people and their restrictions on women’s rights. She came in third place in the competition becoming the first woman to reach the finals. After the competition she was quoted as saying “I’m happy. I said what I wanted to say. I reached what I wanted to reach. Maybe the girls and ladies would say “nothing is impossible”. Upon the airing of the show, she received death threats and insults but she also published more poetry books, adding to the growing compilation of writings by Saudi women.

One of the most notable pieces published by Hissa is “Divorce and Kohlu’ Poetry: A Reading of the Status of Women in Tribal Society and Nabati Poetry as a Witness”. The book is a collection of poems written by 50 Bedouin women from two different tribes prior to 1950. The poems were collected from oral tradition & feature women who used poetry to express their frustration with their husbands, demand divorce, criticize their sexist in-laws, and express their desire for independence. On the collection, Hissa says, “I have collected poems from 50 to 300 years back that show these tribal women saying strong things against the male governor, speaking of coward men and generally saying their thoughts. Now women in Saudi Arabia can't even say five per cent of that, it is just impossible."