CHICAGO: Malika Moustadraf, one of Morocco’s most outspoken literary activists and feminists, was 37 years old when she died in 2006. She published a novel and a collection of short stories from which “Blood Feast: The Complete Short Stories of Malika Moustadraf” was born.
A story that begins in a glass jar in Tangier finds its roots in Palestine where twin girls, Shams and Qamar, are born. Their lives begin as strangely as their futures take shape, in a village that has been cursed, no less, by the girls’ father. Surrounded by the books that their mother has inherited as the daughter of a bookshop owner, Qamar and Shams have no friends to play with but the pages in their library. Through the books, they live adventures, but none that can prepare Qamar for the life she is about to have.
To escape the bleak accursed life and the heavy patriarchy that clouds the village, Qamar decides on adventure as she heads for Jerusalem, then Gaza, and from there to Egypt. From highway robbers to princesses in grand palaces to pirates that sail over the seas, Qamar’s life takes many twists and turns in this four-part adventure. Nimr’s novel is fast-paced and exhilarating as Qamar’s stories, much like Shahrazad’s, keep her alive and ready for each day to co