The Sacred Night - Softcover

Ben Jelloun, Tahar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801864410 ISBN 13: 9780801864414

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Winner of the 1987 Prix Goncourt

The Sacred Night continues the remarkable story Tahar Ben Jelloun began in The Sand Child. Mohammed Ahmed, a Moroccan girl raised as a boy in order to circumvent Islamic inheritance laws regarding female children, remains deeply conflicted about her identity. In a narrative that shifts in and out of reality moving between a mysterious present and a painful past, Ben Jelloun relates the events of Ahmed's adult life. Now calling herself Zahra, she renounces her role as only son and heir after her father's death and journeys through a dreamlike Moroccan landscape. A searing allegorical portrait of North African society, The Sacred Night uses Arabic fairy tales and surrealist elements to craft a stunning and disturbing vision of protest and rebellion against the strictures of hidebound traditions governing gender roles and sexuality.

About this title

Book Description:

Modern Fiction that recalls Rushdie and Grass

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. His novel The Sand Child is also available in paperback from Johns Hopkins.

About this edition

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0801864410
• ISBN 13: 9780801864414
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192