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Mystical Marrakech.
Life in another time.
One of our best-selling books.


Texts and photos: François Maher Presley
1st edition June 2013
2nd revised edition December 2015
and provided with a foreword
3rd edition December 2019 (planned)
Paperback, 240 pages, 115 x 180 mm
Price: 9.80 EUR | Order
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A not undisputed book, as some violent reactions from women and men show, who are portrayed as characters in some texts and naturally have to be deeply ashamed or verbally lash out wildly. However, this does not change anything about the truthfulness of the texts, nothing to the factual presentation of life there, it also does not change anything about the success of the book that is now in its 3rd edition.

After various visits, Marrakech became the author's dream as a residence, which he realized with the purchase of a traditional riad and a new beginning there in 2005. In 52 short stories he describes his everyday life, his experiences, but especially the incidents that determine life there. People, their characters, manners and customs, hopes, disappointments, bought love and hoped-for true love, hopelessness and hopelessness, deception, lies and dreamlike sensuality are the subject of his authentic stories, which touch everyone, are gripping, sometimes shocking, in their description also harrowing. With his words, the author creates images that visitors to the city do not forget, often cannot put into their own words, truths that hide the Moroccan reality under the covers of the tourism industry and "German" political correctness.
The book has been slightly revised and a foreword has been added to make it easier to understand.

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Opinions

The cover picture touched me so much that I had to buy the book. The young woman in the photo shows drastically the opposing poles in the life of a Muslim woman. Fully veiled, as tradition dictates, but with fashionable moccasins that peek out from under the soft, flowing robe, she is caught in the burden of tradition and yet is part of the modern world.
I was similarly moved by the content of François Maher Presley's book. Very empathetic, even more sensual, he feels, touches and breathes life in a city that got stuck in its own past and yet has to face today's demands. It is traded and deceived, loved and despised, beaten and killed. Rules or regulations are being followed negligently or not at all. For the casual visitor who succumbs to the beautiful glow, the magic of the medina and the red city under a blue sky, with the snow-covered Atlas Mountains as a backdrop, cannot be seen through. But suffocating after a long stay for the author, who wanted to fulfill his dream by buying a riad there. For a short time he had created his hoped-for paradise, lovingly reconstructed and adorned it down to the smallest detail and experienced it happily. But then, like the portrait of Dorian Gray, the ruthless grimace of reality emerged. Deeply disappointed, he was driven from his paradise.
In 52 episodes we experience with him the fate of some people he met. Their hopes and disappointments, their visions of a future that will never come true. And again and again the reader is touched by his lyrical depictions of a reality as he experienced it in the most beautiful moments in his riad.
It is a book that you do not read briefly in order to follow a story, there are always new stories that do not lose their magic even when you read them again.
Wilma K. Bosse, Berlin
Now I've just read the last few lines "Mystical Marrakech". It touched me a lot and I can't even make it to the computer in the study and have to write right here on the iPad that is right next to me.
The various short stories are very sensitive and very true to the truth. Even though I have never felt the motives and relationships of Europeans, whether men or women, in this way, but never really questioned them. The sexual motives are not in my thoughts and are very far removed from my everyday life.
I can understand and confirm the description of the renovation in exactly the same way. My partner at the time had a knife in his hand when he had a dispute with a craftsman, just like in the description. That really drove him crazy. In retrospect, I could only say: If it wasn't so sad, you could laugh about it.
The book brought me close to Morocco with all the stories, and also in this conflict between dust, noise, crime, being lied to and betrayed, heat and "a thousand and one nights".
Let's see if I have the time and the desire to travel to Morocco and especially Marrakech again. Yesterday I ordered the book "A Riad in Marrakech", I'm looking forward to it and I'm really excited.
Elke Bottlender

I got this book a few weeks ago. The envelope told me that it was about a topic that would be alien to me. But then I turned the pages and read some of the short stories. It was very moving. Then I picked it up again and read it from the beginning. The author describes how he tries to build a new life in Marrakech. After a short reading you feel yourself put in your own situation. You think you are part of the story. The narrator manages this with a very sensitive language. In this way, you learn a lot about life in Morocco, the people, their religion, their hopes and hopelessness, almost as if they were firsthand. Some reports are almost completely shocking. Others move to tears. I kept asking myself how a person socialized in Germany can move to such a city, to such an alien world that has almost nothing in common with our civilization. On the other hand, I believe that it is naturally inspiring for a writer to deal with the foreign, to break out of the daily grind in Germany, which is just a small part of this world, not at all the center of attention. From time to time, François Presley also reports so sensually and emotionally about the beautiful experiences in his house there, which comes up again and again in an understanding for his decision to move there. Although the book has over 240 pages, it reads incredibly quickly because you just always want to know how things will go on, what will come next, whether it might also lead to hope and a happy ending. I have never been particularly concerned with the Islamic world. But through this book I got a lot of insights and learned a lot. I almost feel sorry for the people who have to live so unfree, but whose lack of freedom is also wanted. Very readable and recommendable. Florian Offermann, Hamburg

The book touched me. It's very intense. Great stories. The most beautiful story for me is the one in which the author talks to a young medical student about love. The style of the individual stories conveys a tension that not only loads the individual story, but also spans an overall arc from the first to the last. All in all, there is a merger and an understandable, common end that is simply feared. The language is not strenuous, but it is very demanding. I certainly had to read some stories twice because of the unimaginability of what happened and since the author changes into the surreal, I think to make the horror tangible. Also so as not to overwhelm the reader. I always had the feeling that I didn't want to stop reading, rather read faster in order to find out everything, to find out the end, although it is to be suspected. Likewise, I did not get the impression that these are 50 stand-alone short stories, but rather a continued novel in which the chapters are conditioned. You learn a lot about the country, the people, the religion and the social behavior there. The author writes factually, almost a little soberly and without judgment. Even the few pictures do not evaluate or support. Since I have been to Marrakech many times, everything was understandable. With every visit it became more and more unbearable for me to travel there again. I had a house there. The book is really recommended. Jörg Krönert, Frankfurt / M.
This book is a must read for travelers to Marrakech and Morocco. It describes the reality of the people living there, including the resident Europeans, which is usually closed to a short vacationer.
The tourist wants to experience the exoticism of this often strange world, admire the Arab architecture, explore the souks with their wonderful handicrafts and immerse themselves in the 1001 nights of the riads. Enjoy the strange music and the Moroccan cuisine, experience the pleasant climate in winter time.
He will see the contradictions in this culture, but as a tolerant “do-gooder” he will not be able to or will not recognize them.
Now the author tears the shador we have chosen ourselves from our faces and shows us what Islam, with its sexual, anti-sexual and misogynist attitudes, does to people and thus creates the conditions for sex tourists from all over the world and especially those from Arab countries Countries are perceived.
In emotion-free and eloquent images, the author shows us in short stories that he experienced with the residents there, how tradition, belief, lack of education and poverty have shaped the people. He doesn't judge, he just describes the characteristics of an Islamic society in an extremely eloquent manner.
Thus, the author awakens in the reader a deep touch, which has a long lasting effect and allows him to see the handling of Islam in Germany with different eyes.
An unconditional purchase recommendation! Elke Michalik, Bochum

Here again my review of the book "Mystical Marrakech" for everyone who is still looking for a book to give away. A book for people, travelers who reject distraction through light entertainment, who prefer to turn to reality and plan to experience a fulfilling, meaningful stay in Marrakech from it.

The title alone beckons. Of course, the word "mystical" is appealing, we associate it with the foreign, the different, that which we do not know and directly associate with the thousand and one nights. It is like the genre of fantasy, the mysticism always offers an immersion in unfulfilled desires, longings, and offers an escape from our everyday life. The veiled woman depicted on the cover also claims a mystical form of existence. Looking at it allows a distance, which the book quickly reduces, because the author familiarizes us with the real world of the mystical Marrakech, yes, he takes us by the hand and shows us exactly where to look when we visit Marrakech visit.

His house as the fulcrum of the happy fulfillment of his dream of living in a riad, at the same time the absolute nightmare when it comes to the renovation by local craftsmen. François Maher Presley not only describes these desperate moments that made him lose his voice in the end, but also illuminates a tableau that the traveler does not always notice: that of the wretched corruption, of the whores, the female and often the male, that the traumatized and the murderer, who seem to revolve around the visitor closer than he would like with full consciousness.

The normal tourist hardly notices so much of it, after all, the country attaches great importance to functioning tourism, but it is something different when you start to renovate and restore a riad, have to deal with everyday life on a daily basis, and the brute force takes place right on your doorstep and sometimes even inside.

Of course, Marrakech is an oriental dream, fulfills all clichés and remains a great attraction. During my visits to Marrakech, I too did not notice any of the acts of violence that the author relentlessly describes, but there is no question that they happen. Just like the oppression of women, which the Islamic world does not only hold in Morocco, the cover speaks for itself, along with the unconditional will of the men to take what they think they are fully entitled to. Both in the heterosexual and homosexual underworld, which the author ingeniously brings into focus.

The myth of a non-existent Orient is well-tempered in this book, but every traveler should certainly not forsake the dream of a visit to Morocco, especially the visit to Marrakech with all its wonderful facets of the colorful and deeply hospitable people, as soon as they have finished reading. Instead, understand this book as a hint to be careful, not gullible, cautious at all times, and to be armed for the abysses that can open up even with the best care.

The fearless openness of the author in this book is at best what is really shocking for me. Even if these novellas reflect subjective insights and experiences, they reflect the often incomprehensible nature of the people in an Islamic system, a system geared towards control and oppression, which is unknown to us in Western countries.

And then, in spite of everything, the red thread through the book is unshakable: love. The lived, the lost, the never known. Different insights into emotional worlds, which the author sensitively, touchingly, but also clearly naming, brings the reader closer. Sad, beautiful, straightforward, honest.Verena Lüthje, Kiel
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