The Sacred Night

by Tahar Ben Jelloun

Book Overview

The haunting continuation of The Sand Child, Ben Jelloun concludes Ahmed's, now Zahra's, journey.

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801864410
• ISBN13: 9780801864414
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

beautiful view of North Africa

THis is a lovely piece of writing about a culture which is little known: North Africa. It is about love and sensuousness.

sequel to "L'enfant de sable"

This book is a sequel to "L'enfant de sable". Zahra, (previously Ahmed) embarks on a journey where she discovers and lives her true gender against all odds and against all the challenges and negatives imposed by a chauvinistic society on those of "her" gender, with freedom being the only reward. The writing style is rather strange, told by (several) mystical story tellers, who seem to compete against one another for the "true" version of the story that the reader will ultimately believe. Because we are subjective, every reader will read this story in a different way. But isn't this the way all stories are read?