Tales Of Tangier - The Complete Short Stories Of Mohamed Choukri

If your idea of a pleasant literary stroll involves neat gardens, respectable drawing rooms and people who express all their emotions through polite eyebrow movements, you may wish to keep walking. Tales of Tangier is Mohamed Choukri’s invitation into a very different world: one of crowded cafés, dusty streets, back alleys, beaches, markets, bars and brothels, where the overlooked, the desperate and the defiant refuse to stay politely in the background. These thirty-one short stories, translated into English and collected together for the first time, capture Tangier in all its beauty, brutality and bewildering humanity.

Choukri had little interest in polishing reality until it shone. His writing is direct, unsentimental and gloriously alive, giving voice to people who rarely find themselves occupying the centre of literature. Orphans, addicts, swindlers, labourers, dreamers and survivors populate these pages, each carrying their own stories with an honesty that can be uncomfortable, funny, tragic and unexpectedly tender—sometimes all within a single paragraph. Reading Choukri feels less like touring a city and more like being dropped into it with only your curiosity for protection.

This copy is in Good condition, meaning it has already travelled a little itself. That’s entirely appropriate. A book about Tangier should probably look as though it’s seen a few ports, overheard a few conversations and spent some time tucked into the corner of a traveller’s bag. It adds character. Unlike social media influencers, books are generally improved by evidence that they’ve actually been somewhere.

There is a wonderful irony in the title, too. Tales of Tangier sounds almost as though it might be a collection of quaint holiday anecdotes, complete with charming cafés and picturesque sunsets. Choukri has other ideas. His Tangier is gloriously untidy, morally complicated and stubbornly resistant to becoming anyone’s postcard. Tourism sells the view from the balcony; Choukri walks you through the back streets and insists you pay attention.

This is a superb collection for readers of world literature, modern Arabic fiction or anyone who enjoys short stories that refuse to wrap themselves up with comforting conclusions. These are stories that linger long after the final page, not because they provide easy answers, but because they ask difficult questions about dignity, poverty, desire and survival with remarkable clarity.

Proudly offered by Crappy Old Books, where remarkable books from remarkable places are always welcome. Some volumes merely tell stories. Others quietly open a door onto an entire world and leave you wondering how you ever managed not to notice it before.

Keep browsing: See more Fiction books Other books by Mohamed Choukri