Four books to travel to Morocco without leaving home
Reading is one of the greatest pleasures in life. Flipping page after page, for many means going out and traveling anywhere in the world. It makes you transport to other places, learn about other customs and delve into the skin of other characters.
Sometimes a book can be your travel ally mayor and, for moments like those we currently live, where we see the possibility of traveling for a long time, these can help you overcome that craving for new experiences that travelers like you love so much.
For this reason, in Argania Travel we propose you some books that can keep you company during this confinement and de-escalation and, as it could not be otherwise, the story that each one tells is inspired by Morocco. Thus, they will learn more about Arab culture, it will serve to understand the context of the country and you will add desire to travel to the maghreb country.
- William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch is a very special novel. Perhaps it is because of its authentic plot or that it allows the reader to read the book’s chapters in any order. The case is that it is an entertaining novel but above all fresh for its changes of scenery. The United States, Mexico and the Moroccan city of Tangier are some of the enclaves where the narration of the adventures of the protagonist, William Lee, takes place. A drug addict where in each destination of his trip he lives experiences and encounters with characters that make his journey a controversial and exciting story. In addition, inspired by the book, a film with the same title was subsequently filmed.
- Among other titles, the famous novel by the Brazilian Paulo Coelho, entitled The Alchemist, stands out. Published in 1988, this posthumous title of fantastic literature tells the story of a young shepherd boy named Santiago who sets out on a journey through North Africa with the aim of interpreting a dream and ends up entering an intrepid adventure that leads him towards the search for a treasure. During his adventure he runs into characters like a glass vendor and an english alchemist who teaches him how to live in the desert. Between battles, oases and love, Santiago undertakes a search for his Personal Legend in which he gets to know himself, making this story an introspective and thoughtful novel that will capture the attention of any reader. The American newspaper, The New York Times defines this fictional novel as a book “more of self-help than of literature”
- Another useful book to better understand the course of the time of the french protectorate in Morocco is through the novel Dreams on the threshold. Memoirs of a harem girl. Written by the faasi novelist Fatima Mernissi, this book is an autobiography of her own story recounting her childhood memories while the french occupation of the North African country was taking place. The moroccan writer and political scientist is one of the main references of feminism in Islam and the rest of her books are closely linked to this line. Through the stories that make up this novel published in 1994, Mernissi makes visible the reality of women in Morocco and the reconciliation between the Islamic religion and her feminist awakening through her own history while living in the harem of Fez. Experiences of reality and fiction in the eyes of a girl at the beginning of the 20th century in Morocco.
- On the other hand we have Eumeswil, the novel by the German author Ernest Jünger set in Morocco where the Anarch lives within society but outside of any group, that is, without belonging to anything or anyone, only to himself. Inspired by the sovereign individual that Max Stirner raises in his philosophy, the Anarch is the opposite version of the anarchist, needing an authority but without believing in it. One of Jünger’s trips to Morocco in 1936 is said to have inspired him to locate the novel.