'Abd al-karim Ghallab's WE HAVE BURIED THE PAST
An acute account of Morocco's transition to modernity and independence as depicted through a well-to-do family living in the ancient capital of Fez. The earlier chapters, which establish the seemingly static world of the past, were too leisurely paced for me, although they offer pleasurable descriptions of the old medina and its physical and social environments. The story quickens with the entry of the second son Abd al-Rahman to a "secular academy," where he learns to question authority and, ultimately, to fight for national independence. The daughter Aisha is mainly used as an illustration of the intellectual and social restrictions confronting upper-class Moroccan women; her story does not become integral to the main political plot. The third and youngest son merely hovers at the periphery of the novel. Most interesting is the dark-skinned son from the patriarch's concubine and enslaved servant, whose understanding of his status leads him to become a judge, a cog ...