Jonathan ‪Smolin‬ is currently directing a study-abroad program for Dartmouth College in Rabat, Morocco. He is the ‪translator‬ of Youssef Fadel’s novel A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me and associate professor of Arabic and chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at Dartmouth College.

“It’s a full summer term. Students live with Moroccan families in the Rabat old city and they take intensive Arabic courses in the mornings and a seminar with me in the afternoons on Modern Morocco (in which they study a number of Moroccan novels, memoirs, and films),” said Smolin yesterday by email.

The students read A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me as part of the course. Smolin then invited the Moroccan author to come speak with the students, in Arabic, about his novel.

“It was a wonderful meeting,” added Smolin. “We’ll be reading The Final Bet and Whitefly in August and Abdelilah Hamdouchi, the author of those novels, will be coming to speak with the students then too.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on 28/07/2016 in FICTION Crime, FICTION Mystery & Detective - General, FICTION Thrillers, Noir, tagged as A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me, Abdelilah Hamdouchi, Hoopoe Fiction, Jonathan Smolin, Morocco, novel, The Final Bet, Whiltefly, Youssef Fadel

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