The dilapidated Charm of Tangiers

By Erin Deborah Waks

There’s something quite special about the dilapidated charm of Tangiers. Living in Rabat has almost been a comfort blanket, with my nice apartment and cosmopolitan ambiance, but Tangiers is so much more my kind of city.

It’s something to do with the arty vibe. Famous writers like Ian Fleming and Tennessee Williams used to frequent the city to write, and I understand why.

I always know I love a place when it inspires me to write - when all I want to do there is write. Here, in Tangiers, I’m overwhelmed with ideas and words. Writers who wrote in the city before me have left a legacy of prose, indicating in the books and crannies of the city that it’s one made for writers.

It seems almost cliche to me that writers often flock to certain places - Cafe Flore and Les Deux Magots in Paris, Harry’s bar in Venice, and Tangiers too. But I guess now I can see why. Something about knowing that a place inspired others is inspirational in and of itself. It’s almost as though the spirit of writers long gone lives on through the soul of writers present. And I’m lucky to consider myself one of them.

Walking past the Teatro Cervantes, drinking coffee in the iconic Gran Cafe de Paris, and watching artsy French movies at Cinema Rif, remind me of this. It’s a city which oozes art deco beauty, combined with the imperfections that bring any city to life.

The city is dirty, rundown and unkempt, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s kept some of the charm it must have held in the 30s and 40s, a lost era, an era of prolific writing. So I guess I’ll sit here with my coffee and unlit cigarette and continue to write. I’ll listen to the rain, the thunder, and continue to put pen to paper as so many did before me.