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Book Cover for: A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me, Youssef Fadel

A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me

Youssef Fadel

SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION

Spring, 1990. After years of searching in vain, a stranger passes a scrap of paper to Zina. It's from Aziz: the man who vanished the day after their wedding almost two decades ago. It propels Zina on a final quest for a secret desert jail in southern Morocco, where her husband crouches in despair, dreaming of his former life.

Youssef Fadel pays powerful testament to a terrible period in Morocco's history, known as 'the Years of Cinders and Lead, ' and masterfully evokes the suffering inflicted on those who supported the failed coup against King Hassan II in 1972.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Hoopoe
  • Publish Date: Apr 15th, 2016
  • Pages: 248
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.00in - 5.10in - 0.70in - 0.55lb
  • EAN: 9789774167546
  • Categories: PoliticalLiteraryRomance - Historical - General

About the Author

Smolin, Jonathan: - Translator Jonathan Smolin is the author of the critically acclaimed Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (2013). He lives in Hanover, NH.
Fadel, Youssef: - Award-winning Moroccan novelist and screenwriter Youssef Fadel was born in Casablanca in 1949. During Morocco's 'Years of Lead' he was imprisoned in the notorious Moulay Cherif prison (1974-75). A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me is his ninth novel. He lives in Casablanca, Morocco.

Praise for this book


"A masterful history of modern Morocco."--BookShy Blog


"[Fadel is] a valued asset of modern Moroccan literature."--Aujourd'hui le Maroc


"Events progress rapidly and with the acute tension of a detective novel"--Leah Caldwell, The National


"Fadel's daring account of modern Morocco widens the periphery of the English reader on a subject that is better known in Arabic and French."--Sherif Dhaimish, Qantara.de



"A masterful history of modern Morocco."--BookShy Blog


"[Fadel is] a valued asset of modern Moroccan literature."--Aujourd'hui le Maroc


"Events progress rapidly and with the acute tension of a detective novel"--Leah Caldwell, The National


"Fadel's daring account of modern Morocco widens the periphery of the English reader on a subject that is better known in Arabic and French."--Sherif Dhaimish, Qantara.de


"A Rare Blue Bird Flies With Me reads like a taut and claustrophobic detective story."--Literary Hub


"Fadel's novel brings out the importance of seeing one's place even in the darkest of times."--Wawa Book Review