Sand Child [Mass Market Paperback]

Tahar Ben Jelloun (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 1989

In this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Tahar Ben Jelloun offers an imaginative and radical critique of contemporary Arab social customs and Islamic law. The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan father's effort to thwart the consequences of Islam's inheritance laws regarding female offspring. Already the father of seven daughters, Hajji Ahmed determines that his eighth child will be a male. Accordingly, the infant, a girl, is named Mohammed Ahmed and raised as a young man with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional Arab-Islamic societies. As she matures, however, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of her sexual evolution, and as a woman named Zahra, Ahmed begins to explore her true sexual identity. Drawing on the rich Arabic oral tradition, Ben Jelloun relates the extraordinary events of Ahmed's life through a professional storyteller and the listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square in the 1950s to hear his tale. A poetic vision of power, colonialism, and gender in North Africa, The Sand Child has been justifiably celebrated around the world as a daring and significant work of international fiction.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Seemingly cursed to father only daughters in a society that devalues females, an Arab conceals the birth of an eighth girl by proclaiming the child, Ahmed, a son and heir. The tale that follows is a cynical, dreamlike exploration of the roles into which Arab men and women are shaped: shackles to some, yet a clear identity and a well-defined bridge connecting the individual to society. At first Ahmed takes a dark delight in "his" secret, observing to his mother scornfully, "You keep quiet and I give the orders. How ironic! How have you managed not to breathe the slightest seed of discontent into your daughters?" Later a madness descends on "him" and is chronicled in letters, a diary and a continually unwinding story with more than one ending. The fragmented, elliptical approach Jelloun takes to his subject is not entirely successful, but his narrative can be savored for its rich, incantatory prose.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Hauntingly poetic and original.

(Times Literary Supplement )

Ben Jelloun, a writer of much originality, succeeds brilliantly in infusing his story with a melancholy that attaches itself not just to Ahmed but also to the Arab world.

(Chicago Tribune )

Mythic, symbolic, at times even highly poetic... At the center of this magical tale the question of gender (and the tangential problems of race and culture) predominates... The ending is absolutely startling. --Washington Post Book World --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; . edition (November 13, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345357108
• ISBN-13: 978-0345357106
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,353,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, March 4, 2001

By 

Graciela Vega (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sand Child (Paperback)

If you are interested in the a dynamic world of storytelling read The Sand Child. It takes you through many tales which weave in and out of social constructs. What constructs create a female? What constructs create a male?

When I read this novel it took me through a range of emotions. It took me into arid land and it made me feel as if I was experiencing The Sand Child's world.

This book question gender construction. It has all the makings of a wonderful novel. I loved it and it made me change my perspective on how I view my world.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor translation of a major novel, March 11, 2001

By 

John D. Erickson (Lexington, KY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sand Child (Paperback)

This translation--unfortunately the only one of the Sand Child-- misses the mark in conveying an accurate representation of Ben Jelloun's novel. There are a number of glaring errors and omissions of original text. If it is at all possible to read the work in the original, one must. My rating is of the translation, not the original.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DILEMMAS OF THE FAIR SEX, September 20, 2011

By 

Vakunta - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sand Child (Paperback)

Tahar Ben Jelloun's The Sand Child is written around the concept of social construction of gender. The novelist succeeds in sustaining this theme throughout the novel. I believe that Jelloun uses the theme of gender manipulation and social perceptions of sex as a social construct throughout the novel, although it is not the only theme he discusses in his masterpiece. Jelloun shines the flashlight on the circumstances that surround Ahmed's dilemma. The child's Father is a complex personality. He knows that Ahmed is really a female, but at the same time insists that he is a man. In other words, he assigns the social construct of masculinity to a child who is evidently female. The reason for doing so is not simply to denigrate women but to ensure that his property is not inherited by outsiders given that inheritance is the prerogative of the male child in the culture under scrutiny. Ahmed's father thinks of ways in which he will keep his ruse concealed from the prying eyes of the public.

Ahmed is thus presented in this novel as the victim of social concircumstances fueled by biases and misconceptions. Ironically, having fallen into the trap set for her by her father, Ahmed begins to talk to her sisters on condescending terms. She feels superior to them believing that she is a "man". Jelloun's novel creates the dilemma in which social construction of gender imprisons most people in contemporary society. It is a novel worth reading meticulously.
Dr. Peter Vakunta is a professor of Post-colonial literatures. He teaches at the Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA-USA.