Hajji Ahmed has seven daughters and a constant worry; he has no legal heir. Determined to stop his greedy brothers from claiming his wealth, he decides that his eighth child will be a boy, no matter what. Thus, his final child, Mohammed Ahmed, is raised a boy with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional society. Yet, as he matures, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of his sexual evolution, and as a woman named Zahra, she finally begins to explore her identity on her own terms.

In haunting, surrealist prose Ben Jelloun relates the extraordinary events of Ahmed/Zahra's life through a storyteller and the listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square to hear his tale. A poetic vision of colonial legacy and gender politics in 1950s Morocco, The Sand Child is the masterwork of one of the greatest North African writers of the 20^th century.