The Naughty Boys of Tangier
A Tour of the Darker Side of Tangier
An unknown history of Tennessee Williams
Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation
What did William Tell have to do with Tangier? – You won’t believe the answer!
Tour the darker history of Tangier, have a drink at Jack Kerouac’s bar, and decide for yourself!
The movie Midnight in Paris with Owen Wilson (2011), romantically visits past writers and artists from 1920s Paris, such as Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, and Henri Matisse. A Moroccan parallel might be called Kief in Tangier with Hemingway, Kerouac and William Burroughs. But it would be a much darker story. The truth behind the Beat Generation and Henri Matisse in Tangier in the 50s and 60s seems more dark rather than romantic.
But first, what was the Beat Generation?
The Beat Generation was a creative movement from the 1940s to the 60s, which rejected conventional narrative, growing materialism, and social values for freer self-expression, including spiritually, sexually and through psychedelic drugs.
The phrase was first coined by Jack Kerouac in 1948 talking about himself in contrast to the lost generations of past writers, much as in Midnight in Paris. He flippantly referred to himself as beaten down, beat up and beat out. And it stuck. The International Zone of Tangier (1923-1956) offered freedoms that to Europeans of the time were scandalous. William Burroughs popularized one of its writing techniques, of cutting up and rearranging phrases in a new order to create a whole new piece of work.
A walking tour through the darker secrets of Tangier’s writers, finishing in Jack Kerouac’s pub
Interzone – Start if you will at the cafés where Mick and Keith got stoned:- Café Hafa or Café Baba. Not just The Rolling Stones, but all of them – Jack Kerouac, Yves St Laurent, Tennessee Williams…
Flyer for Interzone, the shop, great for unique souvenirs
But I am starting at Interzone (William Burroughs’ abbreviation of ‘International Zone’). It’s at the top of the old medina near the Kasbah and 2 minutes from Café Baba. It is a museum of Tangier movie and book trivia and history, as well as a place to chill, or to browse Tangier mementos you can buy nowhere else.
Interzone, with its doorway pictures of some of the famous who have impacted on Tangier.
Around the doorway there are portraits of some Tangier significants painted by local artist Punksy, including its Beat Generation writers, from the right:- Muhamed Mrabet, Paul Bowles, Muhamed Choukri, and William Burroughs. The vapours of their stories still stir up waves in Tangier today. (You can check out who’s who on the left side of the door in my earlier blog “I Sat on Henri Matisse’s Knee”.
A print of an old movie poster about Tangier, one of several for sale.
For myself, I want a poster of the movie A Woman From Tangier, but it won’t fit in my backback. So a mug or a T-shirt will have to do. For now, let’s delve into the disreputable histories of this Beat Generation crowd.
Muhamed Mrabet – The storyteller of Tangier – who has never written a word, and yet is translated into more than a dozen languages.
He is the storyteller who can’t read.
And an artist.
His mesmerizing stories are a weave of dreams, real events, and stories heard in the cafés of Tangier, incredible journeys of humour, tragedy, violence and power, and tensions between clashing cultures. Of course, Mrabet always makes himself the central character.
Also a fisherman, he once said:
“A story is like the sea. It has no beginning and no end. It is always the same and still it keeps always changing.”
Two of Mrabat’s paintings
Born in Tangier in 1936 he even visited Interzone in 2024. Leaving home permanently at 11 years old, he met Jane and Paul Bowles in 1960. Paul Bowles transcribed the recordings Mrabet made of his stories and translated them into English.
Café Colon – It’s not just one of my favourite spots, but also one the Beat-Mates’. In fact, it is where I am sitting at this very moment writing this.
Matisse, Rain. What do you think of his version - compare to the photo on my title page.
Leave Interzone and walk uphill to the T-intersection. To your right you’ll see the arched ‘breezeway’ tunnel leading to the Bab Bhar Sea Gate, the Kasbah Museum and Café Baba. This view not only inspired me for the homepage of OzzyHopper, but is the subject of a Matisse painting.
Home of the American heiress Barbara Hutton near Cafe Baba.
But turn left instead. Follow the medina wall to Bab Kasbah or the Kasbah Gate, then go left downhill. At the bottom you will find Café Colon on your left opposite Cine Alcazar. Stop here for a coffee or a Moroccan mint tea.
Cafe Colon - the inside decor has changed, but I almost feel like I can see their echoes and ghosts.
· Paul Bowles (1910-1999) – The American writer who saved Morocco’s stories. Bowles was a writer and translator who lived in Tangier from 1947 until his death 52 years later, frequenting Café Colon with his Beat-Mates. Besides transcribing and translating Mrabet’s stories, he also wrote his own.
His most famous was The Sheltering Sky, (1949), which has been described as a novel of existential despair, and a must-read initiation for all who spend time in Tangier. It was made into a movie in 1990 starring John Malkovich.
A little earlier than The Sheltering Sky - the steep street rises from Cafe Colon up towards the Kasbah.
The other reason to pause at Café Colon is because this was where the final scene of the movie was filmed. Check out the last scene with the tram in the background – how much easier to go up that hill on a tram than by foot!
The American Legation – This museum is a secret insight into what might be behind the anonymous maze of walls that line the medina streets, initially a defense strategy to confuse the enemy and minimize information. Considering how easy it is to get lost in the medina – and how often I still do – it was a very effective device!
Entrance to The American Legation.
Originally an American embassy, the USA was the first nation to formally recognize the newly independent Morocco of 1956 when the International Zone was finally dismantled. Not only is it a grand house, and an interesting museum, but there are also little turtles to be found in its garden!
Silhouette through window and its magnificent woodwork at The American Legation.
From Café Colon, keep going along Rue d’Italie to the fountain in Grande Socco. From there, turn to your left and follow the narrow street to the next corner (past the fish market, identified by smell). Turn left again (at the Jewish Cemetery). Enter the medina from the Spanish Steps.
Paul Bowles (1910-1999) – The American who saved Moroccan music. Also a musician and composer, Bowles preserved the local gnaua music by recording and transcribing it. Find the display in the Legation. He was an integral member of the Beat Generation with William Burroughs and Tennessee Williams.
You can find meter boxes all over the medina painted like this in Mrabat style by local artist Punksy.
The TangerInn and Hotel Muneria – The hub of the Beat Generation in Tangier was this bar under the hotel, both still functioning. Mrabet worked at Muneria from 1956 variously as a driver, a cook, a general handyman and travel companion.
Go to the Hotel Rembrandt on the Boulevard and find your way down behind it from there a short 2-minute walk, and across the road from where I used to live, from where I heard the night time departures from TangerInn at closing (if I wasn’t there myself).
Mug available at Interzone printed with an old photo with Paul Bowles sitting at the front.
William Burroughs (1914 -1997) – The American author who killed his ex.
A central Beat Generation writer, defying conventions with titles such as And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks written with Jack Kerouac (1954).
In 1951 in Mexico City, the story goes that one drunken night he announced that it was time for him and his ex to do their William-Tell stunt, of shooting a beer glass off her head with his gun. She agreed.
And he missed!
To escape the lingering legal case which dragged on without resolution, he went to Tangier in 1954 for four years, where he wrote Naked Lunch (1959) which was made into a movie. He also published his short stories of a fictionalized version of his life in Tangier in Interzone.
Mohamed Choukri (1935-2003) – Moroccan author who went to school at 21 , and then wrote about his conversations with Tennessee Williams in Tangier. Choukri is an iconic Moroccan writer, an Amazigh born in the Rif mountains and lived in Tangier. He wrote in Arabic, a language he only learnt to read and write at the age of 21.
One of the Beat Generation crowd, his best-known work was a mix of autobiography and Moroccan issues, called For Bread Alone in English. It was banned in Morocco from 1983 to 2000 for its explicit sexual references. Now it is translated into 39 languages! In French it was Le Pain Nu, inspiring the name of a good tapas bar in Tangier – Au Pain Nu – in the Tanjawi style where tapas can come for free.
He is buried in the Merchan cemetery in Tangier.
Tennessee Williams – Was in Tangier for several months in 1957. Choukri wrote about the conversations between them in his book Tennessee Williams in Tangier
Jack Kerouac – was a novelist and poet and the one who coined the phrase Beat Generation. He became known for his ‘stream of consciousness spontaneous prose’. He was in Tangier in 1957 with William Burroughs and co, frequenting the TangerInn with their Beat-Mates. Many times I read his quotes which cover the walls of this cosy pub, a frequent visitor since I lived across the road from it for a space.
Tangier is still a magnet for the creative. Who knows what future famous authors might be here now – although not as romantic as Midnight in Paris, and maybe not a lifestyle to aim for. Kerouac died at the age of 47 haemorrhage from cirrhosis of the liver, and Burroughs’ ex died from a fatal party trick.
There is still character to be found everywhere in Tangier - this one still frequents Cafe Colon today, here with a glass of Moroccan mint tea.