A Street in Marrakech

by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Book Overview

This is a reflexive account of an American woman and her family's unpredictable journey through the private and public worlds of a traditional Muslim city in the process of change. As a Western... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385120451
• ISBN13: 9780385120456
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 419 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.

Customer Reviews

La bes!

Reading this book was like a blast from my past, although my family and I lived at an Air Force Base about 40 miles north of Marrakech. An enjoyable read even for someone with no sense of Morocco. Hits all the interesting aspects of another culture.

A "must" before going to Morocco!

I was so glad that I had read this book before my recent trip to Morocco. It greatly increased my understanding of the Moroccan culture and I was able to more fully apprciate the personal interactions I had with the Moroccan people. It was a great insight into the daily lives of Moroccan women. After I returned, I re-read the book and enjoyed other aspects which I had glossed over before getting to know a bit more about the country.

Sensitive, informative and interesting

My long time fascination with North Africa, culminated in the mid 1980s when my husband and I lived in Algeria for one year. Since then I have tried to enlarge that experience by travelling through the area and reading about the different cultures living in North Africa. How I wish that in 1984 I had already read Elizabeth Fernea's account of her year in Marrakech! Marocco and Marrakech are obviously different cultures from that of Algeria, but the detailed descriptions Fernea gives us about feasts, customs and manners, so very sensitively rendered would have helped and would also have alerted me to the minefield of possible "faux pas" -- which in retrospect I committed by the dozens! From my experience this is a very credible account of life in the region. And most important -- it is not patronizing. Marrakech life is presented with humor, with that perplexing foreignness that is typical to Westerners in North Africa, and with respect for religious differences. The book reads very well, it is full of curious data and also of excitment. A great read!

One Family's Year-Long Experience Living in Marrakesh

I am an American woman who has been living in Marrakesh for the past 9 years. I just read this book. Even though it was written in the early 1970's, I found it to be a very accurate portrayal of life in the old medina, even now. The author and her husband are anthropologists, and both spoke fluent Arabic upon their arrival, from having lived previously in Iraq and Egypt. Therefore, the author was able to converse with people daily, and understand completely, what they were saying. This is something I have never been able to do. Because of this, she is able to give a VERY detailed look at an aspect of life which is nearly impossible for most outsiders to penetrate--the hidden life of Medina women, which takes place behind high, closed walls. What she describes is very similar to what I have experienced here of life with my Moroccan husband's family, and the people who live around them in the Medina. This book is NOT a study of political or historical conditions--it is the detailed, personal history of one family's year-long experience of living, and immersing itself, in the life of Marrakesh.

A woman's tale of acculturation in a Moroccan neighborhood

I read this book many years ago, back in 1982, to be exact. It has stayed with me all these years because of its warm humanity, its fine description and painstaking details about the slow building of friendship and understanding between an American woman and her female Moroccan neighbors in the Rue Trésor, a small street in Marrakesh. I used it in conjunction with other works on Morocco to teach anthropology courses--such works as Geertz' "Islam Observed", Rabinow's "Doing Fieldwork in Morocco", Charhadi's "A Life Full of Holes", Maher's "Women and Property in Morocco", and Dwyer's "Images and Self-Images: Male and Female in Morocco". All of these books portray some aspect of Moroccan society, some more anthropologically rigorous than others. While Fernea's book can be read purely for pleasure, it gives an excellent picture of what struck an American as different about Moroccan society, what cultural differences were most evident for her. If a reader can get hold of the BBC series "Disappearing World" program called "Women of Marrakesh", that makes an excellent companion to the book. A STREET IN MARRAKECH is a down to earth, interesting volume that will hold your interest and provide an excellent insight into another culture. I strongly recommend it.