The Sand Child, Ben Jelloun’s first text published in English, is the tragic tale of a young woman raised as a man and the mental/social unrest in which her existence creates. Set in Morocco, though no specific time or place is given, it introduces Hajji Ahmed, a man discouraged by the “curse” of a succession of daughter-births makes the decision that his eighth child will be a boy regardless of its physical sex. From the moment of birth the audience follows the child, Mohammed Ahmed, and his development into the man his father wants him to be. His discovery of his female identity is marked with confusion, violence, depression, and chaos. It is chronicled by his own narration, in addition to several others, and leads to an anticlimactic end as he attempts to reclaim his “true” gendered identity as a woman renamed Zahra.
The Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun
The Sand Child, Ben Jelloun’s first text published in English, is the tragic tale of a young woman raised as a man and the mental/social unrest in which her existence creates. Set in Morocco, though no specific time or place is given, it introduces Hajji Ahmed, a man discouraged by the “curse” of a succession of daughter-births makes the decision that his eighth child will be a boy regardless of its physical sex. From the moment of birth the audience follows the child, Mohammed Ahmed, and his development into the man his father wants him to be. His discovery of his female identity is marked with confusion, violence, depression, and chaos. It is chronicled by his own narration, in addition to several others, and leads to an anticlimactic end as he attempts to reclaim his “true” gendered identity as a woman renamed Zahra.