Tales of Tangier: The Complete Short Stories of Mohamed Choukri (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

Mohamed Choukri, Jonas Elbousty (Translated by), Roger Allen (Foreword by)

$16.00

Publication Date: May 16th, 2023

Publisher:

Yale University Press

ISBN:

9780300251357

Pages:

264

Description

The complete short stories of acclaimed Moroccan author Mohamed Choukri, translated into English and collected in one volume for the first time

A World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2023

“Choukri is one of Morocco’s most revered figures. . . . To have his words translated is to have the privilege to view the inner world of his intellect and the obscured landscapes of Tangier.”—Noshin Bokth, The New Arab

Mohamed Choukri’s vivid stories invite the reader to wander the streets of Tangier, the ancient coastal crossroads between Europe and Africa, and to meet its denizens at markets, beaches, cafés, and brothels. Choukri’s Tangier is a place where newborns are for sale, swindlers hawk the Prophet’s shoes, and boys collect trash to sell for food.

Choukri says that “writing is a protest, not a parade.” And in these thirty-one stories he privileges the voices of those ignored by society: the abused, the abandoned, the addicted. The tales are at once vibrant local vignettes and profound reflections on the lives, sufferings, and hopes of Choukri’s fellow Tangerines.

About the Author

Mohamed Choukri (1935–2003), who did not learn to read or write until the age of twenty, is a key contrarian voice in twentieth-century Arabic literature and the author of the controversial memoir For Bread Alone. Jonas Elbousty is director of undergraduate studies at the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University. He lives in New Haven, CT. Roger Allen is Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania.

Praise for Tales of Tangier: The Complete Short Stories of Mohamed Choukri (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

“Choukri is one of Morocco’s most revered figures. . . . To have his words translated is to have the privilege to view the inner world of his intellect and the obscured landscapes of Tangier.”—Noshin Bokth, The New Arab

A World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2023

“One of the pleasures offered by reading Choukri’s short story oeuvre in one go is that patterns in the writer’s style and his preferred themes emerge as a whole, giving a sense for Choukri’s poetics and politics. . . . Choukri’s prose in Elbousty’s translation is concise and vivid, full of dialogue and short on description. The sentences are clipped and blunt.”—Anna Learn, Full Stop

“With an unflinching focus on the spaces and people that the Moroccan state would like to keep invisible, Choukri’s trailblazing stories give voice to the marginalized and constitute a powerful act of literary protest.”—Jonathan Smolin, Dartmouth College

“Jonas Elbousty’s vivid, precise, and poetic translation brings to English readers a new cache of work by Mohamed Choukri. At once disorienting, violent, strange, and modern, these narratives both enrich and complicate our understanding of the essential Tangier author.”—Brian T. Edwards, Tulane University