Muhammad Chukri - Pão Seco

When famine ravages the Rif region, a family leaves for Tangier in search of a better life.

In the nights spent in the open air, in the city's alleys, young Muhammad, proud and insolent, discovers injustice and compassion, the tyranny of authority, the labyrinthine madness of misery, the solace of drugs, sex, and alcohol.

And it is in prison that a fellow inmate reveals to him the wonders of reading, changing his life forever.

The author's debut in Portugal, in a direct translation from Arabic, Dry Bread was originally published in 1973, in the English translation by Paul Bowles (For Bread Alone), when Arabic-language publishers were not yet prepared for the narrative chaos, the raw language, and the grammatical indiscipline that challenged tradition and "good taste."

"A true document of human despair" (Tennessee Williams), a cult work banned until recently in Arab countries for touching on taboos of Maghrebi society.

This gripping autobiographical novel established the author and continues to illuminate the path for generations of Moroccan outcasts.