000			01633nam a2200133 4500
090			_a167686 _9167685
010			_a9780349105994 _bbr. _d120 dh.
100			_a20190514d u||y0frey50 ba
101			_aeng _cfre
200			_aThe first century after beatrice _bLLR _fAmin Maalouf _gTranslated by Dorothy S. Blair
210			_cAbacus _dCop 1993. _aLondon
215			_a1 volume de 192 pages _cCouverture illustrée en couleurs _d20 cm.
330			_aMay your name live forever and a son be born to you - an ancient Egyptian prayer thet for centuries had been nothing more than that: an invocation, a plea based on economic necessity. Now however, sometime in the early twenty-first century, it seems the wish has become a reality. A French entomologist, attending a symposium in Cairo, finds a cruious kind of bean being on a market stall. It is claimed the beans, derived from the scarab beetle, have magic powers; specifically the power to guarantee the brith of a male infant - and when the entomologist does some research in to the matter, discovering the incidence of female birth has become increasingly rare, he is left in no doubt that the world has entered intoa 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..
700			_9308 _aMaalouf _bAmin _f1949-.... _4070