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SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC FICTION
Spring, 1990. After years of searching in vain, a stranger passes a scrap of paper to Zina. It’s from Aziz: the man who vanished the day after their wedding almost two decades ago. It propels Zina on a final quest for a secret desert jail in southern Morocco, where her husband crouches in despair, dreaming of his former life.
Youssef Fadel pays powerful testament to a terrible period in Morocco’s history, known as ‘the Years of Cinders and Lead,’ and masterfully evokes the suffering inflicted on those who supported the failed coup against King Hassan II in 1972.
“[Fadel’s] books are full of hopeful, human interactions; through these, the reader is able to catch a glimpse of a better world.”—The New Yorker
"A Rare Blue Bird Flies With Me reads like a taut and claustrophobic detective story."—Literary Hub
"A masterful history of modern Morocco."—BookShy Blog
"[Fadel is] a valued asset of modern Moroccan literature."—Aujourd'hui le Maroc
"Events progress rapidly and with the acute tension of a detective novel"—Leah Caldwell, The National
"Fadel's daring account of modern Morocco widens the periphery of the English reader on a subject that is better known in Arabic and French."—Sherif Dhaimish, Qantara.de
"Fadel's novel brings out the importance of seeing one's place even in the darkest of times."—Wawa Book Review
Award-winning Moroccan novelist and screenwriter Youssef Fadel was born in Casablanca in 1949. During Morocco’s ‘Years of Lead’ he was imprisoned in the notorious Moulay Cherif prison (1974–75). A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me is his tenth novel, and the final part in his modern Morocco series. He lives in Casablanca, Morocco.
Jonathan Smolin is the Jane and Raphael Bernstein Professor in Asian Studies at Dartmouth College in the US. He is the author of Moroccan Noir: Police, Crime, and Politics in Popular Culture (2013), and the translator of several works of Arabic fiction. He lives in Hanover, NH.