THE SACRED NIGHT by Tahar Ben...

THE SACRED NIGHT by Tahar Ben Jelloun, translated by Alan Sheridan (Ballantine: $4.95). This haunting, often hallucinogenic novel by a Moroccan-born French writer focuses on a woman in an unnamed Muslim country who was reared as a man. Her misogynistic--and somewhat addled--father desired a son so desperately that he reared his youngest daughter as a boy (he even faked a circumcision ceremony). Freed from this bizarre charade by his death, the narrator sets out to explore her identity in a series of blurred, interlocking adventures and dreams and discovers what it means to be a woman in a strict Islamic society. Winner of the Goncourt Prize.