Publisher's Synopsis
At the dawn of the twentieth century, a young Sylia from the Rif Mountains in Morocco is taken hostage by the Sultan and imprisoned in a Harem. The story of Sylia and her daughter, Miriam, parallels the events and turmoil that change Morocco from a country of tribal warfare to its decades as a French Protectorate and finally to its birth as an independent nation.
Sylia and Miriam personify the friction between the Moroccans' desire to retain religious and cultural traditions and the French imposition of European modernity and morality. The storyline takes us from the Sultan's palace to the capital city of Rabat to Paris in the 1930s. In pre-war France, Miriam discovers the extreme antisemitism that is prevalent in Europe when she befriends a Jewish lawyer. Finally, Miriam returns to Morocco to see the unfolding of World War II and the Vichy Government take-over of the French Protectorate. Ultimately, she witnesses the joyful day of the return of the exiled king and the declaration of Moroccan independence.
