Hassan makes a living in his native Marrakesh as a comic writer and performer, through his satirical sketches critical of Morocco’s rulers. Yet when he is suddenly conscripted into a losing war in the Sahara, and drafted to a far-flung desert outpost, it seems that all is lost.

Could his estranged father, close to power as the king’s private jester, have something to do with his sudden removal from the city? And will he ever see his beloved wife Zinab again?

With flowing prose and black humor, Youssef Fadel subtly tells the story of 1980s Morocco.

Reviews

"His passion for the marginal, the politicised, and the forgotten has established [Youssef] Fadel as a persistent creative writer of memory and fictionalised histories of Moroccan themes." —Brahim El Guabli, Princeton University

“An astonishing novel.”
—Le Monde Diplomatique

“[Fadel is] a valued asset of modern Moroccan literature.”
—Aujourd’hui Le Maroc