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I hesitated about whether to describe this as a book of essays or short stories. Canetti certainly presents them as realistic sketches, but I cannot help but feel that they were also shaped into little stories by the author. Mind you, if all of the details were just as he experienced them, it makes the book even more fascinating! Canetti starts off in an amusing way, with a story about three unfortunate encounters with camels. Some of my favourite lines in the collection were in this essay. The next essay is about the souks, and what they are to the commercial life of Marrakech - and how the particular negotiating style of the souk is an art form in itself. I'm not sure when Canetti visited - at some point he refers to meeting a survivor of WWI - but the book itself was published in 1967. Quite a bit of the book is devoted to the Jewish section of Marrakech - quite small now, and not much in evidence during my recent visit there. Because Canetti is descended from Sephardic Jews, this was of particular interest to him. One of the most intriguing essays was about the Chinese-French female owner of a bar - and its unusual regulars. There were several interesting insights here about the Glaoui family - who collaborated with the French to overthrow the old regime of Sultan Mohammed V. The book ends up with a kind of symbolic essay to the power of endurance - embodied in the most pitiful of beggars. None of the parts are more than sketches, but it does give you a flavour of Moroccan culture with its rich mix of Berber, Arabic and French influence and its Muslim faith. Canetti's writing style has a graceful simplicity to it which made me eager to read other of his books.