I went to Morocco because I’d loved the way Anais Nin described it in her diary and I’d loved The Arabian Nights as a child, and later the 19th c. adventurous heroines (such as Isabel Burton) described in The Wilder Shores of Love seemed intrepid in their venturing into the mysterious Arab world. Anais was only in Fez for a short time. She focused on the “hammams” (baths), talking to the women about their cosmetics. Her distaste for their ample, ample flesh is palpable but then she was petite and slender. She found in the densely winding corridors of the “medina” a metaphor for the labyrinths of the mind. (I met a man who said she had Berber blood).
Read More
Read More