Tangier - (Literary Guides for Travellers) by Josh Shoemake (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

An edge city, poised at the northernmost tip of Africa but just nine miles from Europe, Tangier is more than a destination, it is an escape. The Interzone, as William Burroughs called it, has attracted spies, outlaws, outcasts and writers for centuries - men and women breaking through artistic borders. The results were some of the most incendiary and influential books of our time and the list of outlaw originals is long, stretching from Ibn Battuta and Alexandre Dumas to Twain and Wharton and from the darkly brilliant Beats of Bowles, Kerouac, Gysin and Ginsberg to the great Moroccan novelists: Mohamed Choukri, Mohammed Mrabet and Tahar Ben Jelloun.

Review Quotes

"Indispensable" --New York Times

"Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers is a truly dazzling and extraordinary book. A work of literature in its own right, it's the perfect companion for an exotic journey or an armchair afternoon. The kind of book that educates, amuses, and charms with every page, it's one that reveals the magical underbelly of Tangier like nothing else." --Tahir Shah, author of The Caliph's House

"Josh Shoemake spent three years in Tangier, hanging out with some of the finest writers resident there, including Paul Bowles. His literary companion is a work of passion and of experience... a fascinating guide." --Anthony Sattin, Sunday Times

"I've rarely read a guidebook that had a more powerful effect on me." --Good Book Guide

"Brilliant" --Guardian

"A wonderfully elegant account of the people and places that have contributed to the exotic allure of Morocco's most exciting city." --Giles Foden, Condé Nast Traveller

"A sure-footed guide to the lore and literature of an enigmatic city." --Iain Finlayson, The Times

"An excellent book." --Robert Irwin, The Times Literary Supplement

"Engaging... takes the form of a diverting stroll through the city's labyrinthine streets... it is as much about the writers who lived, wrote and looked for love as it is about the streets themselves." --Thomas Hodgkinson, Spectator

"This book is a fantasia of stories and quotes by and about the astonishing number of writers who made their homes there... It's a heady mix of tolerance and vice and is often very funny too... this multi-layered city is brought alive in a marvellously odd, gossipy romp of a book." --Robin Hanbury Tenison, Country Life

About the Author

Josh Shoemake read English at Columbia. He has lived in Morocco since 1996. He spent three years in Tangier, where he taught literature and formed close friendships with Paul Bowles, Mohamed Choukri and other local artists and writers. He then served for five years as headmaster of The American School of Marrakech and has published stories about Tangier in The Threepenny Review and elsewhere.