Morocco in Books of Varying Quality
Discover Morocco through literature with our curated list of books of varying quality, from classics like Paul Bowles' *The Sheltering Sky* and Tahar Ben Jelloun's *The Sand Child* to Paulo Coelho's *The Alchemist*, plus diverse fiction picks.
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The Sheltering Sky
by Paul Bowles
The Sheltering Sky is a landmark of twentieth-century literature. In this intensely fascinating story, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans' incomprehension of alien cultures leads to the ultimate destruction of those cultures. A story about three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky explores the limits of humanity when it touches the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
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The Sand Child
by Tahar Ben Jelloun
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.
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Year of the Elephant
by Laylá Abū Zayd
In this moving fictional treatment of a Muslim woman's life, a personal and family crisis impells the heroine to reexamine traditional cultural attitudes toward women. Cast out and divorced by her husband, she finds herself in a strange new world. Both obstacles and support systems change as she actively participates in the struggle for Moroccan independence from France. This feminist novel is a literary statement in a modern realist style. Many novels by women of the Middle East that have been translated reflect Western views, values, and education. By contrast, Year of the Elephant is uniquely Moroccan and emerges from North African Islamic culture itself. Its subtle juxtaposition of past and present, of immediate thought and triggered memory, reflects the heroine's interior conflict between tradition and modern demands. The title refers to a famous battle described in the Koran.
