In the 1980s and ‘90s, when I lived in Marrakech, the headscarf was a simple affair. In Gueliz, the New Town, few women wore either a headscarf or a djellaba—an…
Articles
The Unknown Terrorist(s)
The Australian novelist Richard Flanagan dedicates his important and timely new novel, The Unknown Terrorist (Grove, 2007), to his compatriot David Hicks, who was captured as an unlawful combatant in…
Blown
Abdelhay Mohammadi, lycéen . . . apprenti kamikaze dans la commune de Sidi Moumen . . . Tous les jours après l’école, Abdelhay se rend à la petite mosquée en…
An American in Marrakech
As an Anglo-Irish American raised on visions of Africa, it took a scholarly conference in Marrakech this past year to bring me to Morocco. By that time, I had lived…
Run-Rogue-Runner-Run
If only he can standstill! But he must run. They are after him. Why can’t they standstill and give him the time to standstill? He can’t stop them, for he…
Veiled Allusions
I usually stride briskly down Rue Ibn Hajar. And always with eyes averted. But, today, as I scan the solidly male clientele lolling outside La Bonne Galette café, my eyes…
“L’facances, ‘that’s how we call them,’ ”
The title of my article, “L’facances, ‘that’s how we call them,’ ” refers to a scene in Algerian director Nadir Moknèche’s film Le Harem de Mme Osmane (2000) in which…
An East-West Mirror
From the spring of 1989 to Christmas 1997, I spent seven wonderful years living in Morocco. I had gone for a three month sabbatical, to be somewhere quiet to write…
Messages from Morocco
Our apartment has—how shall I say this delicately?—a smell. The odor emanating from the wool blankets I recently bought in Tangier permeates our rooms and lends them the rich aromatic…