MOROCCO ANTHOLOGY: Travel Writing Through the Centuries

Morocco is a country that has been much invaded, much travelled through, and much written about in many languages. Positioned at the entrance to Africa, or the entrance to Europe, it has seen deep cultural cross-fertilization and the emergence of a very distinct culture at the threshold of two worlds. Its history is exciting and colourful, its ancient cities extraordinary in their preservation, and its people magnetic. It has drawn travellers and writers for many centuries, and continues to do so today, and there exists a rich seam of description and mostly fond appreciation. Martin Rose, a long-time resident of the country, has been able to mine all of this for his fascinating anthology. Writers include Emily Keene, Wyndham Lewis, Samual Pepys, Edith Wharton, Ali Bey al-Abbasi and many others. Topics include hospitality, missionaries, a sailor's telescope, the Cordobans of Fez, Cordovan leather, culture, shops, washing the streets, demons of the bath house, economics of the slave market (1901 by Budgett Meakin), the Jewish Quarter, amulets for sickness, the Sultan and his Umbrella 1816 and a greater look at Marrakech and the High Atlas mountains, the Navy, mosques, a visit to the harem, female delicacy and indelicacy, a consular fishing trip, a great ghost town, motorcars, gunfire and tennis, the politics of water to bad news and clockwork toys from Walter Harris in 1921. Beautifully printed and bound, 156pp, illus.