Product Description

In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Tahar Ben Jelloun offers an imaginative and radical critique of contemporary Arab social customs and Islamic law. The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan father's effort to thwart the consequences of Islam's inheritance laws regarding female offspring. Already the father of seven daughters, Hajji Ahmed determines that his eighth child will be a male. Accordingly, the infant, a girl, is named Mohammed Ahmed and raised as a young man with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional Arab-Islamic societies. As she matures, however, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of her sexual evolution, and as a woman named Zahra, Ahmed begins to explore her true sexual identity. Drawing on the rich Arabic oral tradition, Ben Jelloun relates the extraordinary events of Ahmed's life through a professional storyteller and the listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square in the 1950s to hear his tale. A poetic vision of power, colonialism, and gender in North Africa, The Sand Child has been justifiably celebrated around the world as a daring and significant work of international fiction.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #336547 in Books
• Published on: 2000-05-31
• Original language: French
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review

"Hauntingly poetic and original." -- Times Literary Supplement

"Ben Jelloun, a writer of much originality, succeeds brilliantly in infusing his story with a melancholy that attaches itself not just to Ahmed but also to the Arab world." -- Chicago Tribune

"Mythic, symbolic, at times even highly poetic... At the center of this magical tale the question of gender (and the tangential problems of race and culture) predominates... The ending is absolutely startling." -- Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fez, Morocco, in 1944 and has lived in France since 1971. An internationally recognized novelist, poet, playwright, and essayist, Ben Jelloun has received numerous awards for his works, including the Prix Maghreb, the Prix des Hemispheres, and the Legion of Honor. His books include Solitaire, Silent Day in Tangier, With Downcast Eyes, Corruption, and Racism Explained to My Daughter. He is also a regular contributor to Le Monde. In 1987, he was awarded the Prix Goncourt for his novel The Sacred Night, also available in paperback from Johns Hopkins.

Customer Reviews

Questions of gender and identity in the Maghreb
I read this novel, translated from French, as it is one of the proposed choices for the World Literature section of the International Baccalaureate syllabus. I knew nothing of the literature of North Africa before I read it. I found it gave a fascinating insight into a recent (1985) attempt by a Moroccan, now living in France, to pull apart some of his culture's assumptions about gender and society. It is a hallucinatory novel, challenging our ideas about story-telling and the novel form, weaving narrative and super-narrative with dream, fictitious journal and snatches of poetry. Thought-provoking, but not an easy read.