The Sand Child

by Ben Jelloun, Tahar; Sheridan, Alan

• ISBN13: 9780801864407
• ISBN10: 0801864402
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-31
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

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.

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

The Man	1	(7)
The Thursday Gate	7	(11)
The Friday Gate	18	(9)
The Saturday Gate	27	(6)
Bab El Had	33	(12)
The Forgotten Gate	45	(7)
The Walled-up Gate	52	(8)
The Houseless Woman	60	(9)
``Construct a face as one constructs a house''	69	(11)
The Storyteller Devoured by His Words	80	(3)
The Man with a Woman's Breats	83	(12)
The Woman with the Badly Shaven Beard	95	(4)
A Night without Escape	99	(4)
Salem	103	(9)
Amar	112	(15)
Fatuma	127	(7)
The Blind Troubadour	134	(16)
The Andalusian Night	150	(7)
The Gate of the Sands	157