Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
YOU CAN'T BEAT TANGIER
The Beat Generation was a post-WWII American counterculture movement that combined visceral
engagement in worldly experiences with a quest for deeper understanding. It reached its apotheosis in
Tangier. Many Beat artists - writer Jack Kerouac, and poets Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso -
were just passing through, while writers William Burroughs and Paul Bowles, and the multi-talented
Brion Gysin, spent significant parts of their lives here, further inspiring a coterie of local artists. The
result was a mixed bag, from the heights of artistic creativity to the lows of moral depravity. Today
Beat history can still be found throughout the city:
Hotel el-Muniria
(
Click here
) William Burroughs wrote
The Naked Lunch,
his biting satire of the
modern American mind, here. Originally titled
Interzone
, the topic was written in the cut-up tech-
nique developed by Brion Gysin. Ginsberg and Kerouac also shacked up here in 1957.
Le Tangerine
(
Click here
) Photos of Beat customers abound on the walls of this bar (formerly the
Tangier Inn) below the el-Muniria.
Café Central
(
Click here
) Burroughs' principal hang-out on the Petit Socco, where he sized up his
louche opportunities.
Tangier American Legation Museum
(
Click here
) Houses a wing dedicated to Paul Bowles.
Hotel Continental
(
Click here
) Scenes from the movie version of Paul Bowles'
The Sheltering Sky
were filmed here.
Café Hafa
(
Click here
) Paul Bowles and the Rolling Stones came here to smoke hashish.
Gran Café de Paris
(
Click here
) The main literary salon during the Interzone, it also drew Tennessee
Williams and Truman Capote.
Entertainment
Films are either in Arabic or dubbed in French.
Cinema Rif
(Cinematheque de Tanger; ; 0539 93 46 83; Grand Socco)
In this fine, well-restored art deco
building you'll find both indie and mainstream films, mostly American, Moroccan, Span-
ish or French (with Spanish and American films typically dubbed into Arabic).
CINEMA
Cinema Paris
(Rue de Fès)
Shows French, American and Bollywood films, the last two dubbed into
French or Arabic. Tickets are Dh25 for downstairs, Dh35 for the balcony.
CINEMA
