Considered one of Morocco s most important contemporary writers, Muhammad Zafzaf created stories of alterity, compassionate tales inhabited by prostitutes, thieves, and addicts living in the margins of society. In The Elusive Fox, Zafzaf s first novel to be translated into English, a young teacher visits the coastal city of Essaouira in the 1960s. There he meets a group of European bohemians and local Moroccans and is exposed to the grittier side of society.

More than a novel, The Elusive Fox is a portrait of a city during a time of fluid
cultural and political mores...

In Arabs and the Art of Storytelling, the eminent Moroccan literary historian and critic Kilito revisits and reassesses, in a modern critical light, many traditional narratives of the Arab world. He brings to such celebrated texts as A Thousand and One Nights, Kalila and Dimna, and Kitab al-Bukhala refreshing and iconoclastic insight, giving new life to classic stories that are often treated as fossilized and untouchable cultural treasures.
For Arab scholars and readers, poetry has for centuries taken precedence, overshadowing narrative as a significant literary genre. Here,...