M'Hashish

Mrabet teeters like an innocent child on the edge of paranoia and madness. These disturbed visions, bubbling up from the very hashish inspired dreams that Mrabet describes, provide insight into the bizarre world of Tangier and the Rif mountains where western values merge in an unsettling medley with ancient Berber traditions anchored in superstition, hallucination, and deceit. Bowles and his intrinsic understanding of this bizarre culture have brought us a most valuable translation that otherwise might never have reached western minds.

Paul Bowles was a great writer who also did us the service of translating many Morroccan writings. One of these writers is Mohammed Mrabet. This little title Mhashish was put out by the City Lights label many years ago. It contains tales largely revolving around the use of kif (or hashish as Americans would call it) It is a delightful collection of tales. Mrabet is a talented writer. He draws up some tantalizing tales that delve into the positive and negative of this state of mind. It is a good introductory volume for the novice (admittedly I am a novice myself) of Morroccan literature. Mr Bowles did us a great favor in translating numerous works by Mrabet. Let us pray to Allah that City Lights finds it in their hearts to reissue these fine collections of exotic literature.