The Storyteller of Marrakesh - Softcover

Steeped in the ambiance of Marrakesh, this exotic metafictional tale marks Roy-Bhattacharya s U.S. debut and will appeal to readers of complex narratives by unreliable narrators. Lovers of mysteries with ambiguous endings will also enjoy this novel. [A] broad, discursive, plausible, and often beguiling presentation of a contemporary Islamic culture little changed by centuries, geopolitics, globalization or religious enmity. Roy-Battacharya s descriptive powers are acute, and Marrakesh, the Djemaa, the Sahara, and the High Atlas Mountains are vividly rendered through all the senses. In a time when tensions between Islam and the West are fevered, The Storyteller of Marrakesh offers an agreeable change of pace. An enigmatic fable in the tradition of The Thousand and One Nights....[Roy-Bhattacharya] has clearly immersed himself in the richness of Moroccan life and history. It makes a lively home for his questing imagination. Stepped in the ambience of Marrakesh. A multilayered novel that juxtaposes the artistry of narration with a collision of cultures in the Jemaa. . . . Lyrical. --Russ Mayes Roy-Bhattacharya s descriptive powers are acute, and Marrakesh, the Djemaa, the Sahara, and the High Atlas Mountains are vividly rendered through all the senses. --Thomas Gaughan

Each year the storyteller Hassan gathers listeners to the city square to share their recollections of a young foreign couple who mysteriously disappeared some time ago. As various witnesses describe their encounters with the couple - their tales overlapping, confirming and contradicting each other - Hassan hopes to light upon details that will explain what happened to them, and to absolve his own brother, who is in prison for their disappearance. As testimonies circle an elusive truth, the couple take on an air as enigmatic as their fate. But is this annual storytelling ritual a genuine attempt to uncover the truth, or is it intended instead to weave an ambiguous mythology around a crime?