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 efforts 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. He fakes his "son's" circumcision by cutting his own finger and carefully guides the child through the public baths, where Mohammed first begins to perceive the distinctions of anatomy and becomes confused about her own identity. Recognizing the place of women in society, Ahmed becomes an active participant in the plot, assuming patriarchal authority over her sisters and marrying her cousin Fatima. However, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of her sexual evolution and as a woman named Zahra, Ahmed explores her true sexual identity. Ben Jelloun draws on the rich Arabic oral tradition, allowing the extraordinary events of Ahmed's life to be told by both a professional storyteller and his listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square in the 1950s to hear the 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.

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