The Almond » (REPRINT)

An autobiographical erotic novel written by an observant Muslim woman in contemporary North Africa, The Almond is an extraordinary and pioneering literary work, a truly unforgettable journey into the sexual undercurrents of a world that is, outwardly and to Western eyes, puritanical.

Badra is a young Muslim widow who flees the small town of Imchouk to take refuge with her Uncle Slimane's iconoclastic ex-wife. In Imchouk, it was expected that Badra's life should be limited by her husband's wishes, but at Aunt Selma's, Badra begins to think about how she wants to live from now on. She recalls her youthful curiosity about sex — what other girls' and women's bodies were like, her first attempts to spy on men, her fascination with the two beautiful prostitute sisters who lived outside Imchouk. When she develops a passionate, consuming relationship with a wealthy doctor, Badra remembers and rediscovers her own sexual being, in scenes that are erotic, revelatory, and sometimes bittersweet.

C. Jane Hunter's translation gives us a book of great power that resembles a Muslim Vagina Monologues. The Almond is an inspiring and illuminating novel that reminds us of the transformative power of desire and pleasure.

Publishers Weekly

This autobiographical novel, which first appeared to great acclaim in France, charts the sexual exploits of Badra, a devout Muslim who escapes her arranged and loveless marriage to live with an aunt in Tangier during the 1960s. France has withdrawn from Morocco, but the city Badra is inadvertently exposed to currents of the rising counterculture, including feminism. Then she meets Driss, an older European-educated doctor who serves as her erotic mentor, awakening her true carnal self and her awareness of her enormous sexual power. Reminiscent of Marguerite Duras's The Lover, the story is told by a wiser, older narrator recalling her reckless youth with envy. "Nedjma," the novel's pseudonymous Moroccan author, has a gift for turning a beautiful phrase obscene and vice versa-sustaining the title's metaphor for genitalia for over 200 pages is no easy feat. In some senses, her story appeals directly to Western fantasies-liberating the Muslim woman from her veil-and it is easy to see how such a book would gain approval from a French or American audience. Yet the novel is so genuinely artful, so emotionally sincere, that the racy subject matter is eclipsed by its stunning prose. Agent, Rebecca Byers. (June) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.