This novel came out of the conjunction of two inspiring stories. The first was the discovery that my husband’s family roots lie amongst the nomads of Mauretania who brought silver, spices and salt from sub-Saharan Africa through the desert by camel caravan to trade in the markets of Morocco.
The second was meeting a Frenchwoman who had come to the remote Berber village in which we live seeking her father: a Tuareg trader with whom her Parisian mother had had an affair in the 1960s. She had discovered the truth of her paternity only on her mother’s death-bed: all her life it had been a mystery, a shameful secret. In contrast to Abdellatif, she had spent her life feeling rootless and confused about her identity, existing as only half a person, never really fitting into the world in which she lived. The rest of her story is not mine to tell; but I must thank her for the inspiration, because without it I would never have written this book.