The Almond Book

"The Almond casts new light on sexuality and women in Islam. It is a journey into the erotic undercurrents of a world that is, outwardly and to Western eyes, near-puritanical." Badra is a young Muslim woman in a brutal arranged marriage who flees her small town of Imchouk for Tangiers, to take refuge with her Uncle Slimane's iconoclastic ex-wife, who has always advised Badra to seek her own pleasure. In Imchouk, it was expected that Badra's life should be ruled by her husband, but at Aunt Selma's she can finally speak about her sexual history, beginning with the horror of her marriage, and to think about how she wants to live from now on. What she chooses bears little resemblance to the role of timid, sexless wife that had been selected for her. She recalls her youthful curiosity about sex - what other girls' and women's anatomy was like, her first attempts to spy on men, her fascination with the two beautiful prostitute sisters who lived outside Imchouk. When she meets a wealthy doctor and society man at a party, she embarks on a passionate, consuming relationship with him that will teach her a pleasure she has never known before.