A Year in Marrakesh - Softcover

Peter Mayne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907871089 ISBN 13: 9780907871088

Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd, 2002

Synopsis

Having learned to appreciate Muslim life while living in Pakistan, Peter Mayne settled down to live in the back streets of Marrakesh in the 1950s. Rather than watch from the shelter of a hotel terrace, he rented rooms, learned the language, made friends, and became embroiled in conspiratorial picnics, hashish-laced dinners and in the enchantments and misunderstandings of the street, with its festivals, love affairs, potions and gossip. By turns used, abused and cherished by his neighbours, Mayne wrote their letters for them and captured the essence of their lives in this affectionate and hilarious account.

About this title

Review:

"I know of no other book that paints such an endearing portrait of life among Muslims. The author's warmth and humanity illuminate every page, and to keep the ball rolling, it is deliciously witty. A classic."
--The Week, 8 August 2009

Michael Palin picks A YEAR IN MARRAKESH by Peter Mayle as one of his top ten books. One of those travel classics in the Englishman (of some means) abroad vein, this shows a great deal of sensitivity to both Morocco and Marrakesh a country and city I love, too. Rather like Jan Morriss book on Venice, this takes relish in the place, and the life of the place, looking underneath the surface veneer. Its not so much a guide to the sights as the story of Maynes year there, the people he met and the problems of living there. The book is exquisitely written, it strikes just the right note throughout, and whenever I read it, I want to rush off there again. --The Mail on Sunday, 9 January 2011

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0907871089
• ISBN 13: 9780907871088
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 190