Ryad Assani-Razaki (born November 4, 1981) is a Beninese-Canadian writer. His debut short story collection “Deux cercles” won the Trillium Book Award for French-language fiction in 2010, and his novel La main d’Iman won the Prix Robert-Cliche in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for French-language fiction in 2012. Born in Cotonou, Benin, Assani-Razaki first moved to North America in 1999, to study computer science at the University of North Carolina. After graduating in 2002, he struggled to find a job until registering for a master’s in computer science at the Université de Montréal in 2004. He wrote his first short story in 2006, after witnessing an Asian man struggle to order food in a fast food restaurant because of his difficulties with the language. “Deux cercles” was published in 2009. The Hand of Iman, an English translation of “La main d’Iman,” was published in 2025.

Excerpt from The Hand of Iman

In the beginning were two hands and an exchange. I must have been six. The first imperishable memory of my life: a hand, my father’s, callused, black, rough, dusty, and hardened by work in the fields, stretched out towards this other hand, soft, fine, manicured, and holding the largest sum of money I had ever laid eyes on: 15,000 fcfa (23 euros), and my fate was sealed. I recall my father’s face with its skin blackened by the sun, as taut as the leather of a drumhead. And his smile. It’s in my mind, unfading, the image of his raised upper lip baring a row of yellowed teeth. I wonder what he was thinking about. What do you think about when you sell your own son? I would unfortunately learn the answer to this question many years later when I, by then an adult myself, would sell out the one person dearest to me. I spent a long time resenting my father, not necessarily for that act, which I could have found a way to explain to myself, but  rather for the expression on his face as he accomplished it. It was neither satisfaction nor sadness. My father’s face bore a mask that I would spend most of my life attempting to decipher. I refuse to believe it was indifference. Because that would mean that my life had no meaning and that selling a child is akin to selling cattle. A mere economic transaction. Neither do I want it to be joy, for what do we make of a father happy to sell his child? One third of my identity was passed on to me by my father, another third by my mother, and the last third represents my personal experience. I chose to think that such a large part of me wasn’t delighted either on the day that I sold out the dearest being in my life. As for sadness? I don’t know if I wish my father had felt sad, because wouldn’t it mean that, despite knowing he was exposing me to harm, he carried on regardless? What imperatives can push a man to cast off his own flesh? Necessity? I find it hard to believe. I’ve learned that when you love someone, there is no such thing as necessity—you must fight to the finish. Iman taught me that.

Whatever the reason, I had cost 15,000 fcfa on a rainy day. Much later, I would earn the same amount monthly and my whole being would be shaken when my employer placed the crumpled bills on my palm. The bills that had purchased me, on the other hand, were brand new. They were crisp and shiny. They were beautiful. I would later learn that the woman who bought me, and asked me to call her Auntie Caro, had stopped by the bank a few hours earlier, just before undertaking the journey that took her from the capital to my village a little farther to the north. She made this trip regularly, at least monthly. It was her occupation. She bought children from their parents and resold them to the highest bidder. She earned a monthly stipend from the children’s labor, which she used to purchase even more children. In return, the boy or girl gained the opportunity to try their luck in the Big City. Fifteen years later, the parents collected the fruit of their investment, the pride of having a child educated in the city, dependable, autonomous, but above all civilized. That is of course if everything went well. I have often wondered how Auntie Caro came to pick the trafficking of children as a livelihood. For a while, I thought the reason was that she didn’t have any children of her own. But over time, I came to the realization that maybe, quite simply, with the children of others it was different.