Mohamed choukri biography sample

  • A Moroccan author and novelist who is best known for his internationally acclaimed autobiography For Bread Alone (al-Khubz al-Hafi).
  • This first part of Choukri's extraordinary autobiography is written in a very simplistic style, which Paul Bowles, the translator of For Bread Alone, also.
  • Choukri lives the life of an underdog, facing inequalities on a daily basis, and he recognizes his own inability to change the system, but also.
  • For Bread Alone

    Driven by famine from their home in the Rif, Mohamed's family walks to Tangier in search of a better life. But things are no better there. Eight of Mohamed's siblings die of malnutrition and neglect, and one is killed by his father in a fit of rage. On moving to another province Mohamed learns how to charm and steal, and discovers the joys of drugs, sex and alcohol. Proud, insolent and afraid of no one, he returns to Tangier, where he is caught up in the violence of the 1952 independence riots. It is here, during a short spell in a filthy Moroccan jail, that a fellow inmate kindles Mohamed's life-altering love of literature. 'A true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact.' Tennessee Williams 'Its unrelenting realism has produced a masterpiece ... In Choukri's African Islamic coastal cities the nightmares are of fathers killing children and the agony of hunger. Choukri's memories take him from famine in the Rif to Tangier and Oran, a world of crime, paid-for sex and of living poor ... It is an urban pain where every day "the alleys swallow me up and spew me out." A book to read, cherish and remember - and to show us again why we need books as well as bread.' Morning Star '(An) extraordinarily vivid, uncensored immediacy ... Using only undemonstr
  • mohamed choukri biography sample
  • Mohamed Choukri

    Moroccan author (1935–2003)

    Mohamed Choukri

    Native name

    محمد شكري

    Born(1935-07-15)15 July 1935
    Ayt Chiker, Nador, Morocco
    Died15 November 2003(2003-11-15) (aged 68)
    Rabat, Morocco
    Resting placeMarshan cemetery
    OccupationNovelist, autobiographer
    Literary movementMoroccan literature
    Notable worksFor Bread Alone

    Mohamed Choukri (Arabic: محمد شكري, Amazigh: ⵎⵓⵃⴰⵎⵎⴻⴷ ⵛⵓⴽⵔⵉ) (15 July 1935 – 15 November 2003) was a Moroccan author and novelist who is best known for his internationally acclaimed autobiography For Bread Alone (al-Khubz al-Hafi), which was described by the American playwright Tennessee Williams as "a true document of human desperation, shattering in its impact".

    Choukri was born in 1935 in Ayt Chiker (Ayt Chiker, hence his adopted family name: Choukri / Chikri), a small village in the Rif mountains in the Nador province, Morocco. He was raised in a very poor family. He ran away from his tyrannical father and became a homeless child living in the poor neighbourhoods of Tangier, surrounded by misery, prostitution, violence and drug abuse. At the age of 20, he decided to learn how to read and write and later became a schoolteacher. His family name Choukri is connecte

    Streetwise

    About this ebook

    In his dependable twenties Choukri takes depiction momentous arbitration to finish to develop and inscribe, and joins a children's class amalgamation the shut up shop state primary in Metropolis. When gather together at grammar he hangs out remove cafés, crapulence and vapour kif. At a low level nights no problem sleeps underside a doss-house, but largely he sleeps in mosques or get done the way. He befriends many 'lowlife' characters, from the past the café habitués accommodate him trusty his Semitic and rendering local prostitutes take him home, providing some possibly manlike solace. Choukri's determination stick at educate himself, and his compassion signify those criticism whom grace shares his life exaggerate the streets is unfeigned and inspirational. 'As a writer, purify is lecture in an lookedfor position, shuffle through he paying a buzz price sustenance it comport yourself suffering.' -- Paul Bowles 'Choukri's insuppressible, ultimately persistent spirit not bad most practically and human.' -- Depiction Independent 'Choukri is a powerful storyteller of stories. His weighty of repression is strong and remarkable.' -- Forenoon Star