Dune Song

Bouziane’s intense, captivating debut tells the story of Jeehan Nathaar, who, months after 9/11, decides to New York City and return to Morocco. Added to the trauma of seeing the collapse of the World Trade Center, Jeehan feels it’s her duty to be the “spokesperson and defense attorney for all Muslims” to coworkers who press her to explain “why Muslims hate Americans so much.” Feeling isolated and disillusioned, Jeehan is persuaded by her on-again, off-again lover, Moroccan journalist Ali el Qutab, to work with him on a story about human trafficking in the southern desert of Morocco. However, he fails to meet her at the Casablanca Airport. Travelling alone, she falls ill and rests at an inn. While being nursed back to health by a motherly innkeeper’s wife, Jeehan meets women at the inn who were traficking victims. Once Jeehan recovers, she finds new purpose by embarking solo on the project Ali had proposed. Bouziane’s writing is tactile and evocative, and her pacing is simultaneously languid yet brisk as the narrative jumps back and forth from Morocco to flashbacks in New York, effectively capturing Jeehan’s inner turmoil. This is an excellent and uplifting subversion of American bildungsroman narratives. (Feb.)