The Storyteller Of Marrakesh

Hassan, a storyteller in Marrakesh's Djemaa al Fna, annually retells the story of a young foreign couple who appeared in the Djemaa, captured the attention of habitu?s, and then disappeared. Or did they? Regular listeners interject their own memories, and these conflict wildly. Some describe a luminously beautiful young woman in traditional Moroccan djellaba and headscarf, others remember her in jeans and t-shirt, garishly made up. Were they abducted by thugs? Signs and portents of danger on the fateful day are recounted: a red moon and a red lightning bolt. The book's ultimate focus is on the love, beauty, and elusive nature of truth, but it also works as a broad, discursive, plausible, and often beguiling presentation of a contemporary Islamic culture little changed by centuries, geopolitics, globalization, or religious enmity. Roy-Battacharya's descriptive powers are acute, and Marrakesh, the Djemaa, the Sahara, and the High Atlas Mountains are vividly rendered through all the senses. In a time when tensions between Islam and the West are fevered, The Storyteller of Marrakesh offers an agreeable change of pace. Book has reminder mark.