Here is a piece from the Guardian on 10 books based in Tangier, Morocco. Of course no list is definitive, and when you're looking at English langauge literature on the city you're going to have an over representation of Paul Bowles, but its nice to have suggestions. Also, what about The Alchemist?
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Mark Twain. Edith Wharton. Patricia Highsmith. The Beats. At one time or another, these literary figures passed through Tangier, and were inspired by the places they saw and people they met. Then there is the wealth of great writers born there: traveller Ibn Battutah, storyteller Driss ben Hamed Charhadi, writer Mohamed Choukri.
Despite this literary link, finding stories set in Tangier is a difficult feat, particularly ones by Arabic writers. The problem lies in language; in Morocco, which language you decide to write in – Arabic or French – is crucial, and while some work will eventually be translated into English, this is not always the case. There also appears to be fewer women writing about Tangier – my list features an almost exclusively male perspective of the city. There are, in fact, female Moroccan writers: Fatema Mernissi, an Arab Islamic feminist whose most well-known work was Beyond the Veil; Leila Abouzeid, whose novella Year of the Elephant was the first work by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic to English; and Leïla Slimani, a Franco-Moroccan writer who won the Prix Goncourt for her novel Lullaby.
Here is my selection of books by authors from Tangier, who passed through, or who even adopted the city as their home.
FULL ARTICLE
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| credit:logopop |
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Mark Twain. Edith Wharton. Patricia Highsmith. The Beats. At one time or another, these literary figures passed through Tangier, and were inspired by the places they saw and people they met. Then there is the wealth of great writers born there: traveller Ibn Battutah, storyteller Driss ben Hamed Charhadi, writer Mohamed Choukri.
Despite this literary link, finding stories set in Tangier is a difficult feat, particularly ones by Arabic writers. The problem lies in language; in Morocco, which language you decide to write in – Arabic or French – is crucial, and while some work will eventually be translated into English, this is not always the case. There also appears to be fewer women writing about Tangier – my list features an almost exclusively male perspective of the city. There are, in fact, female Moroccan writers: Fatema Mernissi, an Arab Islamic feminist whose most well-known work was Beyond the Veil; Leila Abouzeid, whose novella Year of the Elephant was the first work by a Moroccan woman to be translated from Arabic to English; and Leïla Slimani, a Franco-Moroccan writer who won the Prix Goncourt for her novel Lullaby.
Here is my selection of books by authors from Tangier, who passed through, or who even adopted the city as their home.
FULL ARTICLE
