The Lemon

About this book

This powerful and shocking narrative recounts the adventures of Abdeslam a precocious twelve-year-old Moroccan boy who runs away from his home in the Rif Mountains to Tangier. There he struggles to retain his childlike innocence and native pride while striving to support himself in the corrupt and decadent international port. He takes up with a longshoreman and soon meets a rogues gallery of friends mostly hustlers and down-and-outers. With his characteristic brilliance and streetwise charm Mrabet develops the novels ambiguous theme of the necessity of violence to retain ones innocence.