The Sahara, with its harsh emptiness, is a place that even Ovid in his Metamorphoses harnessed symbol to describe. Images-or perhaps mirages, of endless wind-swept ergs, an oftentimes, murderous sun, and vast stretches of rock-strewn hamada perversely tantalize the imagination. Bordered to the north by the Atlas Mountains, the Great Desert is also, home to the indigenous Berbers and their camels, making this wilderness as much a sanctuary of the human spirit as a wasteland. These three short stories relate the young American Dylan's journey across the Moroccan wasteland before sharing the legend of a Berber girl, Maryam, whom he encounters.
