A Year in Marrakesh

Recounting Peter Mayne’s time in Marrakesh in the early 1950’s, this excellent travel book really does feel as if it gives you a glimpse into another place and another time. This is largely because Peter Mayne chooses from monetary necessity to live in the old Arab part of Marrakesh in order to attempt to live as far as possible without money worries, writing a novel (never published) and keeping a journal, which became this enchanting book.

He sets out the reasons for his way of life late in the book when meeting a familiar old acquaintance:
Overcivilised! And you are too! We’ve become caught up in our brilliant little world of progress and prophylaxis and can’t seem to see that the only way to make that tolerable would be to show more have an intellect and a life of it. But we haven’t got intellects, you and I! So what does that make us. Just sillies with insurance policies against life or death, and instincts bound up in insulating tape! And you are too! show less

Not really what I was expecting, but an evocative portrayal of life in Marrakesh nonetheless. Worth a read if you like travel literature and North Africa.

Republished later as A Year in Marrakesh