Customer Reviews

Chocolate Creams and Dollars

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Mrabet is a fantastic story teller.So good, in fact , that when his books first came out critics claimed they were written by Paul Bowles himself. Which isn't true, Bowles merely recorded and then translated the stories. This particular book is largley autobiographical, dealing with Mrabet's life trying to surrvive in his native land. We get a glimpse into the inner-workings of his mind and Morrocan culture as well with its exotic rituals, black magic, spells and anti-spells, and blurring of fantasy and reality. Mrabet lays down the line raw and simple, understateing much of the action, which makes the brutal, violent scenes all the more abrupt and shocking. It's eastern sensibilities slam up against our own western cultural perceptions and shatter them with a kind of quiet, primal delight. Every fan of Bowles needs to own this book.

Paul Bowles, aclaimed author of The Sheltering Sky, actually recorded Mrabet's tales and then translated them. Being set in North Africa, and deriving from a tradition of oral story telling, this book is an exotic adventure. The stories are brutaly honest, often violent and startling ; peices of middle-eastern magic float up from every page. Writeing fom such a culturally different veiw point, Mbaret does an exellent job of takeing westeners into the unique mind-sets of his characters. Over all, an amazing journey if your mind is open enough to take it.