La Nuit sacrée

Synopsis of La Nuit sacrée

«La Nuit sacrée» is the novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun, published in 1987 by Éditions du Seuil in paperback (192 pages, in French).

Continuation of «L'Enfant de sable»: Ahmed, whom his father passed off as male to avoid having no heir, speaks now in old age and offers his own version of events, as an autobiography. The story can be read on its own and unfolds between personal memory and Moroccan culture, with identity, gender and tradition as its axes.

It won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 and appeared in the Cadre rouge collection of Éditions du Seuil.

For readers of contemporary fiction and francophone Maghrebi literature, especially those seeking stories about identity and gender.