Desert

A masterpiece from J. M. G. Le Clézio, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The parallel stories of a lost culture in the North African desert and their descendants, unwanted immigrants in Europe. Desert is two stories. The first takes place between 1909 and 1912 and is about the migration of a young adolescent boy, Nour, and his people, the Blue Men. Driven from their lands by French colonial soldiers, Nour's tribe has come to the valley of the Saguiet El Hamra to seek the aid of the great spiritual leader known as Water of the Eyes. The second narrative tells the contemporary story of Lalla, a descendant of the Blue Men. An orphan living in a shantytown known as the Project near a coastal city in Morocco, Lalla must flee to France where even greater challenges await her.