The Sacred Night
1987
First Published
3.55
Average Rating
180
Number of Pages
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 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.
Avg Rating
3.55
Number of Ratings
1,608
5 STARS
20%
4 STARS
34%
3 STARS
32%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
4%
goodreads
Author
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Author · 41 books
الطاهر بن جلون Tahar Ben Jelloun (Arabic: الطاهر بن جلون) is a Moroccan writer. The entirety of his work is written in French, although his first language is Arabic. He became known for his 1985 novel L’Enfant de Sable (The Sand Child). Today he lives in Paris and continues to write. He has been short-listed for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
