The Caliph's House - Hardcover

Shah, Tahir

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385608071 ISBN 13: 9780385608077

Publisher: Doubleday, 2006

Synopsis

Look into the eyes of a jinn and you stare into the depths of your own soul... Writer and film-maker Tahir Shah - in his 30s, married, with two small children - was beginning to wilt under brash, cramped, ennervating British city life. Flying in the face of friends' advice, he longed to fulfil his dream of finding a place bursting with life, colour, history and romance - somewhere far removed from London - in which to raise a family. Childhood memories of holidaying with his parents, and of a grandfather he barely knew, led him to Morocco and to 'Dar Khalifa', a sprawling and, with the exception of its jinns, long-abandoned residence on the edge of Casablanca's shanty town that, rumour had it, once belonged to the city's Caliph. And so begins Tahir Shah's gloriously vivid, funny, affectionate and compelling account of how he and his family - aided, abetted and so often hindered by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life local characters: guardians, gardeners, builders, artisans, bureacrats and police (not forgetting the jinns, the spirits that haunt the house) - returned the Caliph's House to its former glory and learned to make this most exotic and alluring of countries their home. The Caliph's House is a story of home-ownership abroad - full of the attendant dramas, anxieties and frustrations - but it is also much more. Woven into the narrative is the author's own journey of self-discovery, of learning about a grandfather he hardly knew, and of coming to love the magical, multi-faceted, contradictory country that is Morocco.

About this title

Review:

"Tahir Shah's highly readable account of moving his young family to Casablanca is.... an outrageously black comedy [written] with the straightest of poker faces."--"The Washington Post Book Review" "A wonderfully entertaining book - Tahir Shah's talent is to make you laugh while you are admiring the insights given by his most original and lively view of life."--Doris Lessing "Reminiscent of Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence,""--"Entertainment Weekly" "From the Hardcover edition."

Book Description:

Wonderfully written, funny, entertaining, magical account of the author's struggle to restore a house and set up home in Morocco

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0385608071
• ISBN 13: 9780385608077
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368