L´Amande by Nedjma

 

L´Amande is an intimate erotic story of a supposedly Moroccan Muslim woman. Published in 2004, it is considered the first such novel written by a Muslim woman, it is the story of a young Berber-Arab girl whose sensuality is awaken outside of the classical, traditional framework of the marriage.

Now single, in her 50s, she writes under a pseudonyme and after L´Amande, published another novel with a similar topic.

The Arabic erotic written literature, I dare to say, has earlier roots than our century, and only an over zealous religious establishment hid it under the carpet of extremism. Eroticism and sex in any culture is part of the everyday life and therefore, does have a women authorship as well. We only have to search and be brave to share our sources. In her society, Nedjma should hide behind a pseudonym in order to protect herself. 

Obviously, not everything that approaches ´forbidden´ topics is necessarily good from the literary point of view. The frame on ´forbidden´ means also that the expectations of the readers may be to be privvy on various intimate details and therefore, the literary format and creativity aren´t necessarily of high importance. 

As a work dealing with tabus, L´Amande is a novelty and won its own historical mention. From the literary point of view I was not necessarily impressed, as it mostly deal with topics that are usually covered with more details and probably finesse too in the literature belonging to this genre. Being a ´forbidden fruit´ makes it more interesting and one may be tempted to forget that, after all, erotic writing is also literature.

Rating: 3 stars