A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me - Paperback

by Youssef Fadel (Author), Jonathan Smolin (Translator)

Spring, 1990. After years of searching in vain, a stranger passes a scrap of paper to Zina. It's from Aziz: the man who vanished the day after their wedding almost two decades ago. It propels Zina on a final quest for a secret desert jail in southern Morocco, where her husband crouches in despair, dreaming of his former life. Youssef Fadel pays powerful testament to a terrible period in Morocco's history, known as 'the Years of Cinders and Lead, ' and masterfully evokes the suffering inflicted on those who supported the failed coup against King Hassan II in 1972.

Author Biography

Award-winning Moroccan novelist and screenwriter Youssef Fadel was born in Casablanca in 1949. During Morocco's 'Years of Lead' he was imprisoned in the notorious Moulay Cherif prison (1974-75). A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me is his ninth novel. He lives in Casablanca, Morocco. Translator Jonathan Smolin is the author of the critically acclaimed Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (2013). He lives in Hanover, NH.