Peter Mayne (1908-1979) is to Morocco what Peter Mayle is to Provence or Lawrence Durrell to Greece. This 1953 classic in a new edition captures the very essence of the people and place. Having already learned to appreciate Muslim life when he was in Pakistan, Mayne bought a house in the labyrinthine back streets of Marrakesh. He wanted to settle there, not as a privileged visitor in a hotel or grand villa, but as one of the inhabitants. He learned their language, made friends, took part in their festivals, and wrote their letters. This is not a travel book in the accepted sense of the word-it is a record of personal experience in a region of foreign life well beyond the tourist's eye. Mayne contrives in a deceptively simple prose to disseminate in the air of an English November the spicy odors of North Africa; he has turned, for an hour, smog to shimmering sunlight, woven a texture of extraordinary charm.
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"captures the very essence of people and place" Yorkshire Post
About the Author
Peter Mayne was born in England in 1908. At the age of twenty he went out to India, where his father was a serior member of the Department of Education. For a while he worked as a mercantile assistant in a firm of merchant-shippers, but he was never a successful businessman. At the time of Partition, the Pakistan Government invited him to serve as Deputy Secretary to the Ministry of Refugees and Rehabilitation. When the tension died down, he resigned from government service and settled in Morocco to write his first book. He died in 1979.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
35 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book that makes me jealous,
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This review is from: A Year in Marrakesh (Paperback)
Oh to be able to relocate to an exotic city and write for an occupation! That's what occurs in "A Year in Marrakesh". While other English citizens are touring Morocco, Peter Mayne relocated there, to become a part of the city of Marrakesh and to come to know it. There are many lively characters here, painted with a comprehensive brush that shows them to be, if not real people, than so realistic seeming that you never find yourself saying, "Yeah, right, like you'd actually meet someone like that."
Also, this book give a gentle entry into the mindset of average Muslim people. This book will not shake your world-view, but it may give you the hankering to pick up stakes and relocate for a year or more. And isn't that what good travel literature is supposed to do?
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Must know French...,
By Ninabee (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Year in Marrakesh (Paperback)
This bk was written in 1953. The author uses many French and Moroccan arabic phrases in his writing which makes the experiences & people he encounters feel more authentic but if you aren't familiar with those languages it'd be a frustrating read. Mayne's vignettes are quirky...I never felt as though I got to know him or like him but it was a fairly quick read so I didn't care that much.
There are other books that get to the heart of the Morocco better & deeper with more humor & humanity such as Tahir Shah's "The Caliph's House."
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Englishman in Marrakesh, Insha'Allah,
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This review is from: A Year in Marrakesh (Paperback)
When Englishman Peter Mayne left government service on the Indian Subcontinent in 1949, he moved to Marrakesh, Morocco to test himself and to write a novel. (If he is to be believed, he chose Marrakesh by sticking a pin in a map, blindfolded.) He left after he had completed his novel and his money had run out - a year later. While there, he also kept a journal, which he turned into this charming book, originally published in 1953 under the title "The Alleys of Marrakesh".
In 1949, French control of Morocco was in its last years. (Morocco would gain independence in 1956.) But Mayne barely mentions the political situation or even the French. His year in Marrakesh was spent among the natives, not with Europeans, and it was spent in the alleys and souks, not in the hotels and consulates. Shortly after arriving in Marrakech, Mayne set about learning Arabic and, evidently, he was a quick study. Near the end of the year, and of the book, Mayne tells about a visit from an old friend from Britain, who, with the help of a guide book, had to take Mayne to the tourist attractions in Marrakech (Mayne had visited only a few of them) and who left Mayne his list of "ten people in Marrakesh worth meeting" (none of whom Mayne had met during the previous year). Thus, the book is about native life in Marrakesh, circa 1950, from a perspective about as interior as a Westerner was likely to achieve. The native Arabs and Berbers could be enigmatic and exasperating, primitive and hard-headed, but Mayne cared for them and the picture he sketches of them is, generally, a compassionate one. It is also a picture tinged through and through by Islam, though not a particularly fundamentalistic or evangelical brand of Islam. Many Europeans found the Moors too laid back and insufficiently industrious, not fully understanding that the Moors "are satisfied * * * that God will determine their futures as He pleases. So they don't have to strive for success, and this is what makes living amongst them such a wonderful relief. For them, none of the things that befall you can be disgraceful because, good or bad, everything comes from God." This attitude is also evinced in the ubiquitous Arab "Insha'Allah" - i.e., "God willing". It took Mayne a while to learn that when Moors made some sort of appointment with him "Insha'Allah", it was quite a bit less than a firm commitment. After all, on the way to the appointment, the Moor might meet another friend who invites him for tea or he might otherwise be diverted. Something unforeseeable had intervened and the appointment was missed. It would have been rude for the Moor to decline the appointment "Insha'Allah", but it also would have been exceedingly presumptuous of him (or Mayne) to count on the appointment actually occurring. "The past is past: the present is living evidence of God's wishes, but the future is in His hands. How can you foretell what He has in mind for you when you are making your plans." A YEAR IN MARRAKESH is a graceful, nuanced portrayal of native life in Marrakesh sixty years ago. I cannot think of any ulterior reason why someone in 2010 should read the book other than it is literate and moderately entertaining.
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