L'enfant de sable

Synopsis of L'enfant de sable

«L'enfant de sable» is the novel by Tahar Ben Jelloun, published in 1985 by Seuil in paperback (209 pages, in French).

In a square in Marrakech, a narrator tells the story of Ahmed, the eighth daughter of a couple who, lacking a male heir, raise her as a boy. Ahmed discovers her femininity but decides to live as a man and ends up marrying an outcast girl. Inspired by a true event, it is a poetic novel about the difficulty of being oneself.

For readers of contemporary fiction interested in Maghrebi literature and stories about identity and gender.