In a square in Marrakech, a storyteller recounts the tale of Ahmed, a man whose fate is as troubling as it is extraordinary. Raised on lies to save his father’s honor, Ahmed is male in name only. A gender and a status imposed upon him that he eventually claims as his own: at twenty, he takes his zeal so far as to marry a neglected girl, who soon becomes an accomplice in his dizzying descent into hell... A world-renowned writer of Moroccan origin, Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Fez in 1944. He has written novels, essays, and poetry collections. He won the Prix Goncourt for *La Nuit sacrée* in 1987 and the IMPAC International Prize in 2004 for *Cette aveuglante absence de lumière*, also published by Points. “An adventure that seems straight out of *The Thousand and One Nights*.” J. M. G. Le Clézio