Morocco books!

Replies: 22 - Last Post: 27-Sep-2007 06:30 Last Post By: kiwibabe

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Jezabelloon

24-Aug-2007 08:19
Posts: 30

Morocco books!

Hey all

I'm off to Marrakesh next thursday and am looking for a great book to read!

I'm looking for something that combines fiction with perhaps some historical accounts of Morocco's history, or failing that anything to capture my imagination of Morocco! (i've just read the Bookseller of Kabul so something like that it, i.e. interesting and engaging!)

So if anyone knows of how great reads then please do let me know!

thanks

HeatherF

24-Aug-2007 10:04
Posts: 316

Here are three suggestions that I have read recently and enjoyed:
Giles Milton - White Gold (non-fiction about European slaves in north Africa)
Tahir Shah - Caliph's House (non-fiction about a year in Casablanca renovating his newly bought house)
Laila Lalami - Hope and other dangerous pursuits (fiction about Moroccan tries to cross the Meditteranean into Spain)

wardc

24-Aug-2007 10:08
Posts: 329

Skeletons on the Zahara by dean king based on a true story about a american shipwreck in southern Morocco in the early 19th century

Marocfan

24-Aug-2007 14:05
Posts: 4,055

The Morocco That Was, by Walter Harris...covers the 1880s-1920s period, giving great background on what it was like in those times. He was with the London Times.

"I am never gratuitously rude. My rudeness is carefully calibrated to the stupidity and obtuseness of the people I am dealing with." -- Adam Carr

ainzerka

24-Aug-2007 15:17
Posts: 557

"Hideous Kinky" by Esther Freud

Pas des cadeaux! Pour la dignité, l'industrie, et la liberté.

metr0

24-Aug-2007 17:20
Posts: 8

"For Bread Alone" and "Streetwise" by Mohamed Choukri.

From Wikipedia:

"His main works are his autobiographic trilogy, beginning with For Bread Alone, followed by Zaman Al-Akhtaâ aw Al-Shouttar (Streetwise, 1992) and finally Faces. Mohamed Choukri was born in the Rif in 1935 during a famine, in a poor family with many children and a violent father. His mother tongue was the rifian (a Berber dialect). Because of poverty, his family migrated to Tétouan and then to Tangier. As a chld Choukri survived thanks to a variety of jobs, serving in a French family in the Algerian Rif, or guiding sailors who arrived in Tangier, where he learned Spanish. Now his life is surrounded by prostitutes, thieves, smugglers and especially a tyrannic and violent father. Choukri accused him of murdering his young brother, Kader, as well as his wife. After a family dispute, he left his family at the age of 11 to live in Tangier. There, he was a homeless child, a petty burglar, an occasional smuggler and a prostitute."

Honest and raw from the dark side of Morocco. I found them interesting.

mkini

25-Aug-2007 00:55
Posts: 6

I just read Elias Canetti's "Voices of Marrakesh" in its original German - very stark and evocative travel narration

I'm curious what any one on the forum thinks of the following because I plan to read some of them before I get to Morocco in November:

Tahar Ben Jelloun's "The Sand Child", "The Sacred Night" and "The Last Friend"
Tahir Shah's "The Caliph's House"
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi
Travels with a Tangerine: From Morocco to Turkey in the Footsteps of Islam's Greatest Traveler
by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

Here's an interesting list from a good resource for Morocco in general:
http://lexicorient.com/morocco/_books2.htm

allegory

25-Aug-2007 09:23
Posts: 36

Morocco: The islamic awakening and other challenges by Marvine Howe.
written by an american jounalist who first worked in Morocco in the 50's
clearly written. combines traveler's description with a historical and contemporary review of the country. the customs.

ainzerka

25-Aug-2007 10:22
Posts: 557

And there's always Morocco - Culture Smart! by Jillian York...

Pas des cadeaux! Pour la dignité, l'industrie, et la liberté.

Marocfan

25-Aug-2007 17:30
Posts: 4,055

Who is this York woman? lol And where is she hiding?

"I am never gratuitously rude. My rudeness is carefully calibrated to the stupidity and obtuseness of the people I am dealing with." -- Adam Carr

ainzerka

25-Aug-2007 19:03
Posts: 557

Such a pity--she's in exile....

Pas des cadeaux! Pour la dignité, l'industrie, et la liberté.

alifbaa

26-Aug-2007 09:06
Posts: 1,347

Thanks ainzerka :)

I'd recommend "Hideous Kinky" by Esther Freud as well, and anything Mohamed Mrabet is pretty interesting ("Love With a Few Hairs" is my favorite). If you can stand Paul Bowles writing style, I think "The Sheltering Sky" is a must-read, personally, but many people find it irritating. Laila Lalami's "Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits" is the best modern work of Moroccan fiction, in my opinion.

"we must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality" - Vaclav Havel

jilliancyork.com

ainzerka

26-Aug-2007 10:01
Posts: 557

I really enjoyed The Caliph's House, as well as the author's other books, but don't own it.

Okay, here's my list:

The Morocco That Was
by Walter Harris
Initiation au Tachelhit, langue berbère du sud du Maroc
by Abdallah El Mountassir
The Dream at the End of the World
by Michelle Green
Morocco: Past and Present
by Guido Barosio
Paul Bowles, Magic and Morocco
by Allen Hibbard
Morocco (Hachette world albums)
by Ahmed Sefrioui
Doing Daily Battle: Interviews With Moroccan Women
by Fatima Mernissi
Nedjma
by Kateb Yacine
Imazighen: The Vanishing Traditions of Berber Women
by Margaret Courtney-Clarke
Women of Marrakech: Record of a Secret Sharer 1930-1970
by Leonora Peets
Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges
by Marvine Howe
The Pirate Coast
by Richard Zacks
Patience and power: Women's lives in a Moroccan village
by Susan Schaefer Davis
In Barbary; Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and the Sahara
by E. Alexander Powell
The Tangier Diaries 1962-1979
by John Hopkins
Without Stopping: An Autobiography
by Paul Bowles
A Street in Marrakech
by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
Mauretania: Warrior, Man & Women
by Sacheverell Sitwell
The Berbers of Morocco (Elmtree Africana)
by Alan Keohane
In Touch: The Letters of Paul Bowles
by Paul Bowles
Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue: Scenes from the Non-Christian World
by Paul Bowles
Les plantes médicinales du Maroc
by Abdelhai Sijelmassi

Not counting guidebooks and books by Jane Bowles

I don't own several books I'd like to, including the one I cited.

Pas des cadeaux! Pour la dignité, l'industrie, et la liberté.

kiwibabe

26-Aug-2007 16:02
Posts: 134

Interesting to see White Gold in the list of books as id recommend it too but when i talked about it on another travel site a moroccan guy went into total attack and defensive mode and ended up being taken off the site register! so it must be good!!
I agree too Hideous Kinky - Esther Freud also wrote an earlier book to it but i dont remember what its called - i was given it to read by one of my patients who was a cousin of hers and it was very interesting too.

and before i forget the most excellent book Lords of the Atlas by Gavin Maxwell.

kiwibabe

kiwibabe

26-Aug-2007 16:05
Posts: 134

selfdefensive mode i meant of course!! i wasnt attacking him...!

kiwibabe

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