Must-Read Books on North Africa
Over the years, we’ve been lucky to have a whole range of guests from North Africa, its diaspora, or those that have dedicated their life to the study of the region on the podcast. We went digging through our episode archives to find some of the best recommendations our guests have shared with us for anyone curious to read more from and about the Maghreb.
Zodiac of Echoes, Khaled Mattawa
Recommended by our community
"This book is a marvelous linguistic fusion of diverse cultures and geographies. Rarely do we see a truly international poetry so powerfully articulated in language that is as at home in the American landscape and vernacular as it is in the music, imagery, and politics of Mattawa’s native country." Available via Copper Canyon Press
Memories of Absence: How Muslims Remember Jews in Morocco, Aomar Boum
Recommended by Brahim El Guabli
"There is a Moroccan saying: A market without Jews is like bread without salt. Once a thriving community, by the late 1980s, 240,000 Jews had emigrated from Morocco. Today, fewer than 4,000 Jews remain. Despite a centuries-long presence, the Jewish narrative in Moroccan history has largely been suppressed through national historical amnesia, Jewish absence, and a growing dismay over the Palestinian cause." Available via Stanford University Press
When We Were Arabs: A Jewish Family's Forgotten History, Massoud Hayoun
Recommended by Emma Mizouni
"Winner of the 2020 Arab American Book Award for nonfiction and one of NPR’s best books of 2019, this book is a gorgeous family memoir and 'a powerful exploration of Arab Jewish identity' (The New Arab) that brings the world of Jewish Arab writer and artist Massoud Hayoun’s parents and grandparents alive, vividly shattering our contemporary understanding of what makes an Arab and what makes a Jew. In this book, Hayoun seeks to reclaim a worldly, nuanced Arab identity as part of the larger project to recall a time before ethnic identity was mangled for political ends. 'An intriguing read for anyone interested in furthering their understanding of complex identities and mixed cultural heritage' (Jewish News), the book is also a journey deep into a lost age of sophisticated innocence in the Arab world, an age that is now nearly lost." Available via The New Press
The Bottom of the Jar, Abdellatif Laâbi
Recommended by Khalid Lyamlahy
"This book is the journey of a boy finding his footing in the heart of Fez during the 1950s, as Morocco begins freeing itself from the grip of the French colonial occupation. The narrator vividly recalls his first encounters with the ebullient city, family dramas, and the joys and turbulence of his childhood. He recalls a renegade, hashish-loving uncle, who at nightfall transforms into a beloved Homer, his salt-of-the-earth mother’s impassioned pleas to a Divine ear, and his father’s enduring generosity. Told in the spirit of a late-night ramble among friends where hilarious anecdotes and poignant recollections flow in equal parts, Laâbi’s autobiographical novel offers us a generous glimpse into the formative experiences of a great poet, whose integrity and commitment to social justice earned him an eight-and-a-half year prison sentence during Morocco’s 'years of lead' in the 1970s." Available via Archipelago Books
Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society, Fatema Mernissi
Recommended by Idriss Jebari
"Does Islam as a religion oppress women? Is Islam against democracy? In this classic study, internationally renowned sociologist Fatema Mernissi argues that women’s oppression is not due to Islam, because this religion celebrates women’s power. Women’s oppression, she maintains, is due to political manipulation of religion by power-seeking, archaic Muslim male elites. Mernissi explains that early Muslim scholars portrayed women as aggressive hunters who forced men, reduced to weak hunted victims, to control women by imposing institutions such as veiling, which confined women to the private space. In her new introduction, she argues that women’s aggressive invasion of the 500-plus Arab satellite channels in the 21st century, including as commanding show anchors, film and video stars, supports her theory that Islam as a religion celebrates female power." Available via Saqi Books
Plural Maghreb, Abdelkebir Khatibi
Recommended by Khalid Lyamlahy
"Abdelkebir Khatibi's masterpiece, originally published in French as 'Maghreb Pluriel,' now in English.
Known for his unique treatments of subjects as vast as orientalism, otherness, coloniality, aesthetics, linguistics, sexuality...the ambition behind this volume is to showcase the true experimental complexity and conceptual depth of Khatibi's thinking. Engaging the cultural-intellectual urgencies of a colonial frontier (in this case, the so-called Middle East/North Africa) this book expands our contemplative boundaries to render a globally-dynamic commentary that traverses the East-West divide." Available via Bloomsbury Publishing
Dreams, Naguib Mahfouz
Recommended by Hisham Matar
"In his final years, Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz distilled his storyteller’s art to its most essential level. Written with the compression and power of dreams, these poetic vignettes, telescope epic tales into tersely haunting miniatures. A man finds his neighborhood has turned into a circus, but his joy turns to anger when he cannot escape it. An obscure writer finally achieves fame – through the epitaph on his grave. A group of friends telling jokes in an alley face the murderous revenge of an ancient Egyptian queen. Figures from Mahfouz’s past – women he loved, men who inspired him, even fictional characters from his own novels – float through tales dreamed by a mind too fertile ever to rest, even in sleep." Available via Penguin Books
