Living in Your Light

Three moments in the life of Malika, a Moroccan countrywoman. From 1954 to 1999. From French colonization to the death of King Hassan II. It is her voice we hear in Abdellah Taia's stunning new novel, translated by Emma Ramadan, who won the PEN Translation Prize for her translation of Taia's last novel, A Country for Dying. Malika's first husband was sent by the French to fight in Indochina. In the 1960s, in Rabat, she does everything possible to prevent her daughter Khadija from becoming a maid in a rich French woman's villa. The day before the death of Hassan II, a young homosexual thief, Jaafar, enters her home and wants to kill her.