Institut Ramon LLull

The third instalment of a trilogy of one family’s immigration from Morocco to a foggy city in central Catalonia, El Hachmi dedicates this novel to her mother “who without knowing how to read, taught me to write.” It begins with seven sisters in the Rif, sitting around a pot of tea and asking to hear the story of Fatima’s exodus, alone with her daughter into the vast unknown of Europe. Alternating between the first person and the third, and between Morocco and Catalonia, Fatima agrees to tell them her tale: one of many obstacles overcome and roots new and old; of her daughter, Sara Sqali, who will excel in school and fail at arranged marriage, and become very much a Catalan; of patriarchy and the female Muslim perspective on immigration. Complete with an Amazigh glossary, this novel pays tribute to Fatima’s oral tradition and the powerful yet fraught ties both between mother and daughter and between country of origin and country of adoption.