Leaving Tangier A Novel

From one of the world's great writers, a breakthrough novel about leaving home for a better life In his new novel, award-winning, internationally bestselling author Tahar Ben Jelloun tells the story of a Moroccan brother and sister making new lives for themselves in Spain. Azel is a young man in Tangier who dreams of crossing the Strait of Gibraltar. When he meets Miguel, a wealthy Spaniard, he leaves behind his girlfriend, his sister, Kenza, and his mother, and moves with him to Barcelona, where Kenza eventually joins them. What they find there forms the heart of this novel of seduction and betrayal, deception and disillusionment, in which Azel and Kenza are reminded powerfully not only of where they've come from, but also of who they really are.

Tahar Ben Jelloun was born in Morocco. He has won some of the world-'s most prestigious literary prizes.

Linda Coverdale, the translator of Tahar Ben Jelloun-'s novel This Blinding Absence of Light, won the 2006 Scott Moncrieff Prize and the 1997 and 2008 French-American Foundation Translation Prize.