Dreams of Maryam Tair

AN EXCITING DEBUT AND AN INSPIRING WORK OF MAGIC REALISM

Outside of time, the legendary queen Sheherazade tells a little girl a story that has happened, and is yet to happen. Dreams of Maryam Tair brings readers to a Casablanca of myth and metaphor, of curses, witches, djinns and demons. But it is also a very present-day Casablanca: a raw, pitiless landscape of crumbling urbanism and rusty ports, of bureacrats and student revolts, and of a deep human solitude. During the Casablanca Bread Riots of 1981, a child is born to a mother surveilled and detained. She is born with the scent of orange blossoms and a body filled with pain. They call her Maryam Tair. A special, singular child, she is prophesized to carry three perfect gifts—and one relentless curse.

Richly evoking a world where magic abounds and age-old secrets are revealed, Mhani Alaoui seamlessly interweaves stories ancient and forgotten with a sprawling multigenerational family saga.