When we look at Late Antique Syro-Palestine and Arabia in the early seventh century, the time when Islam is said to have become a religion, an interesting yet complex mosaic…
Articles
Colonial Tangier: From a Hybrid Space to a Hybrid Literature
From 1923 to 1956, the city of Tangier was legally designated as an International Zone ruled by eight Western countries. Tangier was under the control of foreign consuls, and was…
Yto Barrada in Chicago
No other Moroccan photographer working today has achieved the sort of international prominence that Yto Barrada now enjoys. Born in Paris to émigré Moroccan parents, raised in France and Morocco,…
Siwan
The title of this album, released in 2009 by ECM Records, means “balance” in the language of Aljamiado, which developed in medieval Andalus. Aljamiado was a hybrid language of Latin…
Of Revolutions and Other Trivial Pursuits
The “fall of dictators” has been celebrated everywhere as the well-deserved victory of oppressed youth over an aging ruling elite. First Tunisia, then Egypt and Libya, and judging from the…
Grease-Monkeys and Bedouin Girls: The Rhetorical Fate of Arabs and Muslims in Nadine Gordimer’s ‘The Pickup’
Novels tell Stories, allowing readers to fantasize about reality but with no obligation to represent that reality as anything other than fantasy. Good novels, at least the kind that garner a…
A Tale of Two Casablancas
In Laila Lalami’s second novel, Secret Son, there are two Casablancas: one where families like Youssef and Rachida El Makki live in rusty, tin-roofed shacks amidst the stench of garbage,…
Salvation Army—A Review
Salvation Army is Abdellah Taïa’s third novel to date. It is the story of a young Moroccan man coming to terms with his sexual penchant for men. Through this autobiographical…
Another summer is another year in Tangier
I grew up on the water, from a long family tradition of “easy sailors.” Why “easy,” well because for those that had the opportunity to either own a boat or…
The Daughter of Dr. Butrus: A Short Story
I lay on my mattress tossing and turning. I have been restless ever since I talked to Sundus. The family’s return to Morocco complicated life for me. Their departure was…