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L'Enfant de Sable
- Lady Ronit
- Feb 16
- 3 min read
Tahar Ben Jelloun, 1985
To live behind a mask, pretending to be a Man, or to be born a Woman—what’s worse? Oh, poor, tormented Ahmed. Every word in this book is as untrue as it is justified. I believe the worst fate is a lack of freedom to be oneself. A society that limits expression. Society, in its generalized form, whether broad or contained within a unit, cellular. Acting as our Father, Mother, Husband. Are there forces more imprisoning in the World than one’s Partner and Parents? Going against both law and conventional morality, bound by norms that are accepted without question or reflection. At birth, I wasn’t introduced to any rulebook. I wasn’t confronted with any law. I wasn’t given a choice. If I had one, would I want to become a Being in such a World? Does anyone, perhaps one of God’s Angels, ask such a question to Souls before they descend to Earth?
We enter life without knowing the rules. So why, then, must they become absolutely binding? Can a conformist, trapped within form, be a Free Person? Can a Person in form find happiness?
Ahmed was like a liquid, poured into the wrong mould. So he spilled here and there. Like all of us, he fled from and returned to himself. Lost. Overwhelmingly lost, without a way out. For where to return, from what to escape? What was real? Nature, or habit? Which is stronger?
Written in a beautiful language, so beautiful it sometimes becomes incomprehensible. Realistic and purposeful. This is a deliberate technique, it misleads us, forcing us to question the meaning of words and our own reason. What if I know nothing? Everything I think is a mirage and a deceptive vision…
Secrets and tall tales, woven through braids of lies. I enjoyed the narration of this story. Eroticism and intersexuality, especially intelligence deemed unbecoming for a Woman, shown more closely in La Fugue. Unbecoming, or perhaps innate—why not? Would Ahmed have loved books less, would he have been duller, different, if he’d been raised as a Woman?
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