Driven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed's family walks to Tangiers in search of a better life. But things are no better there. Eight of his siblings die of malnutrition and neglect, and one is killed by his father in a fit of rage. This is a memoir of a young Moroccan boy's coming of ag[...]
At the age of twenty Mohamed Choukri takes the momentous decision to learn to read and write, and joins a children's class at the local state school in Tangier. When not at school he hangs out in cafes, drinking and smoking kif. Some nights he sleeps in a doss-house, but mostly he sleeps in mosques [...]
To Mohamed Choukri, Tangier was 'the most extraordinary and mysterious city in the world.' A haven for many Western writers in the twentieth century, Tangier drew the likes of Paul Bowles, Jean Genet and Tennessee Williams. Each was befriended by Choukri. Choukri's recollections of these encounters [...]