A great arched gate led into the labyrinth. Inside, the light was dim, filtered by crude bamboo lattices, the early evening air scented with fresh tanned leather, herbs, and an ocean of spices – cardamom, saffron, paprika, turmeric and fenugreek. Every inch of space was heaving with people in hooded robes and donkeys laden with merchandise. This, the medina of Marrakech, is a desert emporium like none other, packed with life and wares. There were caged birds and dried chameleons for use in spells, ostrich eggs and incense, slim yellow leather slippers arranged in rows, and old Berber coffers offered from makeshift stalls.
I turned left at a shop selling small silver boxes, and then right at a silk merchant’s stall, and found myself at an ancient wooden door. Standing in its cool shadow, I knocked once, then again. A moment later the door was swinging inwards, and I was waved in by a figure in cream-coloured robes. As he led the way upstairs, he said that the gathering was about to begin.
We climbed up, past a fabulous open courtyard, and up again until we were at a covered terrace up on the roof. The fabulous Koutoubia mosque was rearing up behind, serenaded by the evening call the prayer. Sitting on cushions and Berber carpets was a group of people, many of them English. They waited for me to sit. Then, gently, a young woman stood up and began to talk of her magical childhood memories of Marrakech. She was the novelist Esther Freud, and was speaking of her book Hideous Kinky.
Until relatively recently, reaching Marrakech involved much hardship and even weeks of travel. These days it’s much easier of course. The desert city has become a popular weekend destination for the British, who flock there for the shopping and the heat, and the prospect of soaking up a bit of cultural colour.
As Morocco becomes ever more accessible (Easyjet is about to start flying a route to Marrakech from Gatwick, with Ryanair expected to follow with Moroccan routes before the end of the year), a new generation is discovering it as a place to meet English language authors, to hear them read, and talk about their latest work. Marrakech has become the heart of Morocco’s thriving literary scene. A number of impressive literary salons have come to life there, courting some of the biggest names in contemporary English literature.
Esther Freud was talking in the sublime Kssour Agafay, a five hundred year old UNESCO-listed riad and private club dedicated to the arts. Its salon hosts regular literary and cultural evenings, drawing members of the British community living in Marrakech as well as visitors who have travelled to Morocco specially for the events.
Just beyond the old city walls, set in a palm grove known as La Palmeraie is the Jnane Tamsna Literary Salon. Several times a year, over long weekends, authors discuss their work there, chat informally with readers, hold workshops on the craft of writing, all against a serene backdrop of camels grazing and date palms rustling in the gentle breeze. Profits from the salons support local charities focussed on literacy and education.
As well as the literary salons, Marrakech is home to the wonderful Café du Livre, a relaxed blend of bookshop and restaurant – patronised by amongst others the city’s resident authors, who flock there to read, rest and write. The shop hosts its own book launches, readings and other literary functions throughout the year.
It always seems to be painters who are talking about Morocco. They go on about the rich textures, the colours and the light. But for centuries writers have flocked to the Kingdom, too, drawn by the intoxicating blend of cultural colour. Morocco has had a long and curious relationship with the English language and the British literary scene. It all started with Samuel Pepys. The celebrated diarist was sent to Tangier in 1683 as treasurer to assist Lord Dartmouth in evacuating the English garrison there. As always, he kept a diary about it. Not long afterwards came the narratives of brave young Englishmen sent out in tweeds heading south in search of mysterious Timbuctoo. The few who did not perish along the way wrote – usually with trepidation – of Morocco, the land of the Moors.
In the last century, the country turned from a distant dreaded outpost, to a place of inspiration, a Twilight Zone of cultures, perched between Europe, Black Africa and the Arab World. It’s this hotpot of life that has attracted numerous writers, many of them British. In 1938, George Orwell spent six months in Marrakech on doctor’s orders, the dry desert climate prescribed for his tuberculosis. Although attracted by the heat, it was the state of the poor and disaffected that attracted his attention. His short treatise on the city, entitled simply Marrakech is often regarded the perfect essay ever written.
Other English authors have been on very different quests. Wyndham Lewis left England in the Spring of 1931 in search of ‘Barbary’, the Berber homeland; it led to a sojourn that was eventually published under the title Journey Into Barbary. Almost two decades later, Peter Mayne (A Year in Marrakech) lived in the backstreets of Marrakech, and wrote on the gentle pace of ordinary life there. At about the same time Nina Epton arrived, intrigued to find the spiritual heart of Morocco. Her classic Saints and Sorcerers taps into the mysterious underbelly of the Kingdom. A few years later Gavin Maxwell published his masterpiece Lords of the Atlas, which traces his research into the rise and fall of the once-mighty El Glaoui dynasty.
The British are not the only Anglophones to write on Morocco. The northern city of Tangier is synonymous, of course, with the American author Paul Bowles, who moved there in 1947, and stayed until his death in 1999. Bowles’ salon was a meeting place for many of the Beat writers, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, as well as a slew of Arab poets, authors and artists.
Back on the rooftop of Kssour Agafay, Esther Freud has transported her audience back to the days of her Moroccan childhood. She glances down at the massive square of J’ma al Fna, alive with food stalls, jugglers and hurricane lamps. She closes her eyes for a moment. Breathes in deeply. Then she smiles.
(Written for The Times, London)
(C) Tahir Shah, 2006
Ends
I turned left at a shop selling small silver boxes, and then right at a silk merchant’s stall, and found myself at an ancient wooden door. Standing in its cool shadow, I knocked once, then again. A moment later the door was swinging inwards, and I was waved in by a figure in cream-coloured robes. As he led the way upstairs, he said that the gathering was about to begin.
We climbed up, past a fabulous open courtyard, and up again until we were at a covered terrace up on the roof. The fabulous Koutoubia mosque was rearing up behind, serenaded by the evening call the prayer. Sitting on cushions and Berber carpets was a group of people, many of them English. They waited for me to sit. Then, gently, a young woman stood up and began to talk of her magical childhood memories of Marrakech. She was the novelist Esther Freud, and was speaking of her book Hideous Kinky.
Until relatively recently, reaching Marrakech involved much hardship and even weeks of travel. These days it’s much easier of course. The desert city has become a popular weekend destination for the British, who flock there for the shopping and the heat, and the prospect of soaking up a bit of cultural colour.
As Morocco becomes ever more accessible (Easyjet is about to start flying a route to Marrakech from Gatwick, with Ryanair expected to follow with Moroccan routes before the end of the year), a new generation is discovering it as a place to meet English language authors, to hear them read, and talk about their latest work. Marrakech has become the heart of Morocco’s thriving literary scene. A number of impressive literary salons have come to life there, courting some of the biggest names in contemporary English literature.
Esther Freud was talking in the sublime Kssour Agafay, a five hundred year old UNESCO-listed riad and private club dedicated to the arts. Its salon hosts regular literary and cultural evenings, drawing members of the British community living in Marrakech as well as visitors who have travelled to Morocco specially for the events.
Just beyond the old city walls, set in a palm grove known as La Palmeraie is the Jnane Tamsna Literary Salon. Several times a year, over long weekends, authors discuss their work there, chat informally with readers, hold workshops on the craft of writing, all against a serene backdrop of camels grazing and date palms rustling in the gentle breeze. Profits from the salons support local charities focussed on literacy and education.
As well as the literary salons, Marrakech is home to the wonderful Café du Livre, a relaxed blend of bookshop and restaurant – patronised by amongst others the city’s resident authors, who flock there to read, rest and write. The shop hosts its own book launches, readings and other literary functions throughout the year.
It always seems to be painters who are talking about Morocco. They go on about the rich textures, the colours and the light. But for centuries writers have flocked to the Kingdom, too, drawn by the intoxicating blend of cultural colour. Morocco has had a long and curious relationship with the English language and the British literary scene. It all started with Samuel Pepys. The celebrated diarist was sent to Tangier in 1683 as treasurer to assist Lord Dartmouth in evacuating the English garrison there. As always, he kept a diary about it. Not long afterwards came the narratives of brave young Englishmen sent out in tweeds heading south in search of mysterious Timbuctoo. The few who did not perish along the way wrote – usually with trepidation – of Morocco, the land of the Moors.
In the last century, the country turned from a distant dreaded outpost, to a place of inspiration, a Twilight Zone of cultures, perched between Europe, Black Africa and the Arab World. It’s this hotpot of life that has attracted numerous writers, many of them British. In 1938, George Orwell spent six months in Marrakech on doctor’s orders, the dry desert climate prescribed for his tuberculosis. Although attracted by the heat, it was the state of the poor and disaffected that attracted his attention. His short treatise on the city, entitled simply Marrakech is often regarded the perfect essay ever written.
Other English authors have been on very different quests. Wyndham Lewis left England in the Spring of 1931 in search of ‘Barbary’, the Berber homeland; it led to a sojourn that was eventually published under the title Journey Into Barbary. Almost two decades later, Peter Mayne (A Year in Marrakech) lived in the backstreets of Marrakech, and wrote on the gentle pace of ordinary life there. At about the same time Nina Epton arrived, intrigued to find the spiritual heart of Morocco. Her classic Saints and Sorcerers taps into the mysterious underbelly of the Kingdom. A few years later Gavin Maxwell published his masterpiece Lords of the Atlas, which traces his research into the rise and fall of the once-mighty El Glaoui dynasty.
The British are not the only Anglophones to write on Morocco. The northern city of Tangier is synonymous, of course, with the American author Paul Bowles, who moved there in 1947, and stayed until his death in 1999. Bowles’ salon was a meeting place for many of the Beat writers, including William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, as well as a slew of Arab poets, authors and artists.
Back on the rooftop of Kssour Agafay, Esther Freud has transported her audience back to the days of her Moroccan childhood. She glances down at the massive square of J’ma al Fna, alive with food stalls, jugglers and hurricane lamps. She closes her eyes for a moment. Breathes in deeply. Then she smiles.
(Written for The Times, London)
(C) Tahir Shah, 2006
Ends
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