(What books would you recommend for somebody who wants to know more about Morocco?) The work of Mohamed Choukri, which I discovered when I was 15, wa… - Laila Lalami

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(What books would you recommend for somebody who wants to know more about Morocco?) The work of Mohamed Choukri, which I discovered when I was 15, was a revelation. His first novel, “Al-Khubz al-Hafi,” loosely based on his childhood and adolescence, was banned by the Moroccan government, but copies were making the rounds in my high school in Rabat. There’s also a fascinating book he wrote about his troubled and troubling friendship with Paul Bowles, which Telegram Books recently issued in English as “In Tangier.” Another writer I came across in my teens, and who was a huge influence on me, was the late, great Fatema Mernissi, the feminist scholar and sociologist. Several of her books appear in English, including “The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam” and “Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood.”