Moroccan reading list

MOROCCAN READING LIST

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem
Fatima Mernissi.
"I was born in a harem in 1940 in Fez, Morocco..." So begins Fatima Mernissi in this narrative of a childhood behind the iron gates of a domestic harem. She weaves her own memories with the dreams and memories of the women who surrounded her in the courtyard of her youth - women who, deprived of access to the world outside, recreated it from sheer imagination. Fatima Mernissi tells the story of a girl confronting the mysteries of time and place, gender and sex in the Muslim world of the latter half of the 20th century.
The Sand Child of Taher Ben JellounIn this lyrical, hallucinatory novel set in Morocco, Tahar Ben Jelloun offers an imaginative and radical critique of contemporary Arab social customs and Islamic law. The Sand Child tells the story of a Moroccan father's effort to thwart the consequences of Islam's inheritance laws regarding female offspring. Already the father of seven daughters, Hajji Ahmed determines that his eighth child will be a male. Accordingly, the infant, a girl, is named Mohammed Ahmed and raised as a young man with all the privileges granted exclusively to men in traditional Arab-Islamic societies. As she matures, however, Ahmed's desire to have children marks the beginning of her sexual evolution, and as a woman named Zahra, Ahmed begins to explore her true sexual identity. Drawing on the rich Arabic oral tradition, Ben Jelloun relates the extraordinary events of Ahmed's life through a professional storyteller and the listeners who have gathered in a Marrakesh market square in the 1950s to hear his tale. A poetic vision of power, colonialism, and gender in North Africa, The Sand Child has been justifiably celebrated around the world as a daring and significant work of international fiction. "Hauntingly poetic and original."--Times Literary Supplement "Ben Jelloun, a writer of much originality, succeeds brilliantly in infusing his story with a melancholy that attaches itself not just to Ahmed but also to the Arab world."--Chicago Tribune "Mythic, symbolic, at times even highly poetic ... At the center of this magical tale the question of gender (and the tangential problems of race and culture) predominates ... The ending is absolutely startling."--Washington Post Book World
· Paperback: 174 pages (1 May, 2000)
· Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; ISBN: 0801864402

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For Bread Alone - Mohamed Choukri and Paul Bowles (Introduction)
Described by Tennessee Williams as "a true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact", Choukri's autobiography, of which this is the first volume, speaks for an entire generation of North Africans. Born in the Rif, Choukri moved with his family to Tangiers at a time of great famine. His childhood was spent in abject poverty, and eight of his brothers and sisters died of malnutrition or neglect. During his adolescence, described here with its attendant erotic escapades, Choukri worked for a time as servant to a French family. He then returned to Tangiers, where he experienced the violence of the 1952 independent riots. At the age of 20 and still illiterate, he took the decision to learn to read and write classical Arabic - a decision which transformed his life. After mastering the language, he became a teacher and a writer, finally being awarded the chair of Arabic Literature at Ibn Batuta College in Tangiers. Today, he is one of North Africa's most respected and widely read authors.
· Paperback: 152 pages (October 1993)
· Publisher: Saqi Books; ISBN: 0863561381

A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard - Paul Bowles
"A pipe of kif before breakfast gives a man the strength of a hundred camels in the courtyard." The proverb which opens this collection of stories lets us know where Bowles is coming from. Four short tales of Moroccan kif smokers open doors into worlds distant in time, space, and spiritual reality from millennial America. Bowles' style is distantly reminiscent of Hemingway in its bare simplicity, but also evocative of the South American magical realists in its exploration of the miraculous.
Each of his heroes is a kif smoker, and each finds it to be a useful and integral part of his life. Whether dealing with difficult neighbors in "A Friend of the World" or avoiding the cops in "He of the Assembly," smokers have a definite edge in Bowles' Morocco. But this is no simple paean--the stupid everyday troubles that also spring from kif are presented vividly and humorously (the soldier who loses his gun in "The Wind at Beni Midar" perfectly captures the zenith and nadir of chronic use). Short but satisfying, "A Hundred Camels in the Courtyard" makes an excellent introduction to Paul Bowles' work.
· Paperback: 64 pages (1 September, 1986)
· Publisher: City Lights Books; ISBN: 0872860027

The Voices of Marrakesh - Elias Canetti and J.A. Underwood (Translator)
This is an ideal introduction to the work of Elias Canetti, who is described on the cover of my US copy as "one of the major intellectual figures of the 20th century". If, like me, you had never heard of this "solitary man of genius" (except on a list of Nobel Prize winners) then this short record of a visit to Morocco will introduce to you the quality of his writing.For a brief example of his perception read the brilliant observation of bargaining in the chapter entitled "the Souks". There is no better or more concise explanation in literature of the culture and age-old tradition of bartering .Canetti is perhaps not so well-known because he relentlessly returns to the same few themes in his writing: crowds, death, and the smells and sounds that bring emotions.These are touched upon in this book also. I read this book on my way to any hot foreign country and resolve to observe and enjoy life better. This book is slight compared to Canetti's masterpiece - his memoirs in three parts.I cannot recommend those volumes too highly. But you will not regret purchasing this little memoir.
· Paperback: 103 pages (1 December, 2002)
· Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers; ISBN: 0714525804