Mohamed Choukri (1935-2003), who did not learn to read or write until the age of twenty, is a key contrarian voice in twentieth-century Arabic literature and the author of the controversial memoir For Bread Alone. Jonas Elbousty is director of undergraduate studies at the Council on Middle East Studies at Yale University. He lives in New Haven, CT. Roger Allen is Professor Emeritus of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
With an unflinching focus on the spaces and people that the Moroccan state would like to keep invisible, Choukri's trailblazing stories give voice to the marginalized and constitute a powerful act of literary protest. -Jonathan Smolin, Dartmouth College Jonas Elbousty's vivid, precise, and poetic translation brings to English readers a new cache of work by Mohamed Choukri. At once disorienting, violent, strange, and modern, these narratives both enrich and complicate our understanding of the essential Tangier author. -Brian T. Edwards, Tulane University