With downcast eyes

Hailed internationally as the acclaimed North African novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun's finest work to date, With Downcast Eyes recounts the powerful story of a young Moroccan girl's confrontation with the twin challenges of exile and immigration. Jelloun's young heroine, who with her family has fled from an impoverished Berber village to the extravagant city of Paris, finds herself disoriented, torn between the sophistication of an unfamiliar society and the vibrant, mystical culture that is her true spiritual inheritance. Born under the weight of a great and chilling prophecy - that the salvation of her Berber community depends on her alone - and raised in a credulous, intransigent world of responsibility and honor, she decides to leave Paris at last and return to North Africa to fulfill her destiny.

Tahar Ben Jelloun's tale, written in fluid, lyrical prose and set against the majestic backdrop of North Africa and Europe, is at once an unforgettable account of the trials of deracination and a stirring tribute to the meaning of heritage and home.