`The Last Storytellers' is a book that puts into print stories from the Moroccan tradition of oral storytelling which goes back almost a thousand years and is now in danger of becoming extinct. Assisted by his guide, Ahmed Tija, Richard Hamilton, the BBC's Moroccan correspondent, sought out in Marrakech five authentic storytellers. Typically they are men who followed what they saw as their fate despite the disapproval of orthodox Islam and opposition from their families, who regarded storytelling as little better than begging.
The last storytellers may be aged, poor and frail, but their stories are rich in detail and full of vitality. In his excellent introduction Richard Hamilton tells of some of their accomplishments. One learned most of the Old Testament and all of `One Thousand and One Nights'. Another studies classical Arabic texts at night and recites them next day in Darija, the dialect his listeners can understand. The youngest, who was born into an extremely poor family and had to leave school so that he could help his father at work, is exceptionally well read and can introduce material from Cervantes or Jorge Luis Borges into his tales. The oldest, going deaf and already blind, remembers when, during the time of the French Protectorate, storytellers, speaking in the Berber language, used stories to pass messages to one another in code.
Since the men who tell them are no strangers to poverty and oppression, it is not surprising that these thirty-seven stories show sympathy with the underdog and a subversive glee when he succeeds where others have failed. Sons of black slaves inherit a kingdom and marry a Sultan's daughter; respected magistrates turn out to be crooks; barbers are promoted to the rank of Vizier; and a Sultan sacks all his sycophantic viziers because none will tell him the truth.
This is a very entertaining collection and a book I intend to keep. To write this review I read the stories more quickly than I would have liked; but I hope to return and read them at a more leisurely pace. All good stories have depths which do not reveal themselves immediately, and these are no exception. Richard Hamilton has done us all a service in recording what he describes as `a priceless treasure, as precious as mankind's greatest artefact or the planet's most endangered species, and of immeasurable importance to humanity.'
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