The First Century After Beatrice, Amin Maalouf

May your name live forever and a son be born to you - an ancient Egyptian prayer that for centuries had been nothing more than that: a prayer, an invocation, a plea based on economic necessity. Now, however, sometime in the early 21st century, it seems the wish has become reality.

A French entomologist, attending a symposium in Cairo, finds a curious kind of bean being sold on a market stall. It is claimed the beans, derived from the scarab beetle, have magic powers; specifically the power to guarantee the birth of a male infant - and when the entomologist does some research into the matter, discovering the incidence of female birth has become increasingly rare, he is left in no doubt that the world has entered into a critical phase of its history.

As his beloved daughter Beatrice approaches maturity, the entomologist and his partner question the validity of gender bias, and attempt to redress the growing imbalance before it reaches irreversible proportions. But in the poverty and famine of the South, where male children can mean the difference between survival and starvation, the popularity of the scarab beans is already taking devastating effect ...

'If someone is going to tell a story about the end of the world, we can glean some comfort from the fact that it is told in a voice as refined and delightful as Amin Maalouf's' Independent on Sunday

'A sharp, ingenious and well-crafted story of politics, opinion-forming and morality' Observer

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