Claim Now The Beach Cafe The Voice Formulated By Mohammed Mrabet Ready In Interactive Format

first foray into Moroccan literature, incidentally quite by accident, and Im treated to a wonderful book containing two stories by Mohammed Mrabet, What fascinated me most was that the stories were not written by Mrabet but told by him in other words the good old tradition of oral narration, Paul Bowles, an acclaimed writer in his own right, translated the taped recordings of Mrabet from Moghrebi an Arabic dialect into English,

How much of the exquisite literature is Mrabets and how much is Bowles is unknown to me, What I do know is that theirs is a dance of eloquence merging storytelling and prose that puts the stories in this book The Beach Café amp The Voice on a shelf amongst my high ranking literary delights.


The Summaries

Mrabets The Beach Café is about the relationship between Driss and Fuad, Where Driss is nothing but kind and helpful to the old café owner, Fuad is one of those characters common in Middle Eastern cultures who would rather talk and spread lies behind Driss back while telling him sweet nothings to his face.
Theirs is an odd interaction that draws light on the subtlety in which tradition, religion and, most importantly, hypocrisy creep into human interaction, Driss is generous and wiser beyond his years while Fuad is greedy and lame giving the characters a juxtaposition from which to create a most interesting tale,

The Voice is a shorter, less complicated story but equally compelling, Mesud hears a voice from birth until adulthood that compels him to commit heinous crimes every now and then, Mesud eventually tires from these commands and confides to his grandfather about the voice he hears, Mesuds grandfather encourages him to regard the voice as evil, a djinn, Mesud then meets a girl whom the voice has sent to kill him but events take a different turn,

The Style

Paul Bowles writes these stories in a minimalist style that evoked aspects of Hemingways writing style and that is where the comparison ends.
Theres beauty in simplicity and eloquence in the directness to which Bowles endows on Mrabets stories, I look forward to getting my hands on the rest of Bowles translations of Mrabet, which will not be easy to come by,

The themes covered in thesepages are familiar to me when I think of my Middle Eastern upbringing where gossip and lies can be spread like wildfire, jealousy, and greed even from those you are generous to are not uncommon, and belief in the djinn can be extreme.
Perhaps this is why the book resonated with me,

Id like to think, however, that its the way the prose is expressed that truly struck a chord the way good literature always does, Fascinating stories, easy read. Tycks ha gått över ån efter vatten här, . .

Från början muntligen berättad på arabiska och inläst på kassett av Mrabet, därefter transkriberad tolkad och översatt av Paul Bowles, Detta är den franska översättningen av Bowles text, Lost in translation eller ej, kom inte riktigt in i texten och den berörde mig inte alls på samma sätt den tycks ha berört Patti Smith, vilket hon återkommer till flera gånger i M Train.
This is a book that Patti Smith refers to a lot in M Train, thus my interest in it, I was incredibly lucky to find it used for a reasonable price, Both stories are good, but I did not inhabit them nor they me as Patti did, The stories were recorded and translated by Paul Bowles, which comes through in the style, I think it's been a while since I read Bowles, Nice for a day's reading, Mohammed Mrabet real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem born March,is a Moroccan author artist and storyteller of the Ait Ouriaghel tribe in the Rif region, Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams, Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a depressive, horror show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europeand America.
Mrabets art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui, Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who e Mohammed Mrabet real name Mohammed ben Chaib el Hajjem born March,is a Moroccan author artist

and storyteller of the Ait Ouriaghel tribe in the Rif region.
Mrabet is mostly known in the West through his association with Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams, Mrabet is an artist of intricate, yet colorful, felt tip and ink drawings in the style of Paul Masson or a depressive, horror show Jean Miro, which have been shown at various galleries in Europeand America.
Mrabet's art work is his own: very loud and intricate, yet comparable with that of his contemporary, Jillali Gharbaoui, Mrabet is increasingly being recognized as an important member of a small group of Moroccan Master Painters who emerged in the immediate post Colonial periodand his works have become highly sought after, mostly by European collectors.
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