Hailed as a masterpiece when it was first published in France in 1977, TheDesert tells the story of al-Mammi, a young exiled prince of a now-destroyedJewish kingdom in southern Morocco in the late fourteenth century. Fightingbattles in the service of kings and narrowly escaping imprisonment, the princetravels the Islamic world absorbing lessons, often painfully, on how to governhimself, as well as a country. At that same time, al-Mammi engages upon aspiritual journey to obtain inner wisdom rather than material riches. Memmichronicles the prince's fortunes as they rise and fall, drawing upon the traditionsof Maghrebian storytelling and Arabian tales to offer a highly imaginative andallegorical novel that provocatively blends history with fiction.