Farewell Tangier (The French List)

A bold, intimate debut novel that follows a young Moroccan woman’s flight from shame to self-reclamation. For Alia, being a teenager in Tangier means constantly facing a gauntlet of unwanted encounters by men in the streets who look her over, grab her, or make comments about her body. At night, in the privacy of her bedroom, Alia begins to take photos of her body in order to understand what those men see when they look at her, becoming her own voyeur. When Alia’s photos somehow end up on the internet, she decides to flee the country, as the photos violate Moroccan law. She seeks refuge in Lyon, France, but is unable to escape the past.   Farewell Tangier is a searing exploration of the male gaze and its potential to shatter a young woman’s life, exploring themes of desire, dissociation, and exile. It is both a feminist critique of the policing of female bodies and an affecting narrative of one young woman’s struggle with her identity.