The initial title of the novel was La Nuit du destin, however the publisher Jean-Marc Roberts insisted on changing it.

After leaving the prince, the return to real life is abrupt for the narrator: she has a bad encounter in a wood, and is raped.

As Assisi cannot bear it, she decides to take revenge on the young girl, and finds her uncle, who comes to Agadir to accuse her of lying and theft of the family inheritance.

In The Sand Child, published in 1985,[3] Tahar Ben Jelloun gave voice to a storyteller, to tell the story of Ahmed, a young Moroccan girl whom her father had passed off as a man throughout her life, so as not to experience the dishonor of not having male heirs.

Combining real facts and magic, Tahar Ben Jelloun develops in his novel an unprecedented portrait of Morocco.

The harshest features of Moroccan society are represented there: the difficult situation of women, subject to rape and male domination, the problem of begging, state crimes.