The Sacred Night

by Alan Sheridan (Translator), Alan Sheridan (Translator), Tahar Ben Jelloun (Author)

New
Paperback
2000
$27.25

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.

Synopsis

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.

$27.25

Quantity

12 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Edition: New e.
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 26 Sep 2000
ISBN 10: 0801864410
ISBN 13: 9780801864414
Book Overview: Modern Fiction that recalls Rushdie and Grass

Media Reviews

Impressive... Though [the story] suggests a number of allegorical interpretations, the surface of the narrative proceeds with enough sheer pleasure and lack of pretension to deeper meanings to ensure that these are rarely overt... Gender, sexuality, the cultures they impose, and the restrictions imposed on them by cultures, are a form of imprisonment; yet so, too, is the attempt to evade them. * Times Literary Supplement *
Haunting, often hallucinogenic. * Los Angeles Times *
A writer of much originality. * Chicago Tribune *

Author Bio

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.