Mohammed Mrabet became known as a storyteller when Paul Bowles discovered him in Tangier in the early sixties. Bowles, at the time a central figure of the Beat Generation, was a great admirer of Mrabets stories and he transcribed and published them as Mrabet himself is illiterate. Mrabet tells his stories in the traditional way: orally and constantly changing of content and form. Shortly before Crossing Border a new anecdotal novel will be published; Manaraf (not yet translated into English). This time written down and adapted by Simon-Pierre Hamelin.

As well as a storyteller Mrabet is also a painter.

photo ©Roberto de Hollanda

• ‘When I tell a story I don't know where or why it began, how it will continue or when it will end. A story is like the sea, it has no beginning and no end, it is always the same and still it keeps always changing. When the ears want to hear, a voice begins to speak. Today the ears don't want to hear but the eyes want to see. And when the pen forms words the story becomes a rock and rocks never change.' - Mohamed Mrabet