Ceremony

Ceremony, Yasmine Chami-Kettani, París, Babel, 1999

Is about the wedding of the brother of the protagonist, Khadija, the author recreates the atmosphere of Moroccan families during the time of the ceremony. Khadija was a young architect of thirty-five years after her divorce. She was reunited with her parents and her voice shows the contrast of his present life and past memories. A story between the weight of tradition and the will of freedom. Her thoughts are with the help of his cousin, who was also at the family party: Malika. The mixture permeates the novel, the contradictory feelings of Khadija force to show her desperation.
The weak point of the story is perhaps the concept and realization of the main character. Khadija is the pretext for action, but at the same time, the object of reflection. However, the thread of the argument is lost through subplots as the story of Aisha, the premium lost.
In ceremony, we hear the voice of a woman who had fought for her freedom:

“Come, Mamma, there’s nothing to do here, you see that we want” (p. in order of the negative action of her father. But a reality, “is tired of fighting, and suddenly you have more desire to escape” (p. 17), over time it causes the perception of that reality cannot escape all his life. The most interesting thing is the complicity built between the two cousins, Khadijah and Malika, is the evocation of the human and moral strength of women with this type of culture where women have not achieved the equality whose reached by men. And lastly, a symbolic desire and lack of sex “in secret, she sees her daughter a husband invested by two, a girl without sex” (p. 49).