The Storyteller of Marrakesh

By: Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

Narrated by: Gerard Kyle

Each year, the storyteller, Hassan, gathers listeners to the city square to share their recollections of a young, foreign couple who mysteriously disappeared years earlier. As various witnesses describe their encounters with the couple, Hassan hopes to light upon the details that will explain what happened to them, and to absolve his own brother, who is in prison for their disappearance. But is this annual storytelling ritual a genuine attempt to uncover the truth, or is it intended instead to weave and ambiguous mythology around a crime?

The first in an ambitious cycle of novels set in the Islamic world, The Storyteller of Marrakesh is an elegant exploration of the nature of reality and our shifting perceptions of truth.

©2011 Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya (P)2011 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Critic reviews

"An enigmatic fable in the tradition of The Thousand and One Nights." (Editor's Choice, The New York Times)

"[A] broad, discursive, plausible, and often beguiling presentation of a contemporary Islamic culture little changed by centuries, geopolitics, globalization or religious enmity. Roy-Battacharya’s descriptive powers are acute, and Marrakesh, the Djemaa, the Sahara, and the High Atlas Mountains are vividly rendered through all the senses. In a time when tensions between Islam and the West are fevered, The Storyteller of Marrakesh offers an agreeable change of pace." ( Booklist)

"Steeped in the ambiance of Marrakesh, this exotic metafictional tale marks Roy-Bhattacharya’s U.S. debut and will appeal to readers of complex narratives by unreliable narrators. Lovers of mysteries with ambiguous endings will also enjoy this novel." ( Library Journal)