Farida

Translated from French by Phyllis Aronoff and Howard Scott.

Farida, a young woman in Tunis, is passionate about reading and loves the French language. But she is compelled to marry Kamel, a brute of a man, who drinks, keeps mistresses, and beats her when she talks back. But she is defiant, and takes comfort from her secret reading. The country is a French colony and male—dominated. Finally after ten years she is granted a...