Gertrude

?As Hassan Najmis acclaimed novel begins, our unnamed narrator befriends an elderly man, Muhammad, who, as a young man, worked as a tour guide in the city of Tangier. Muhammad tells the narrator about his most famous clients, the renowned Gertrude Stein and her companion Alice Toklas, whoon the recommendation of Henri Matissehired Muhammad as their guide when they visited Morocco. Now close to death, Muhammad begs the narrator to take his papers and write his life story. We learn that Muhammad accepted Steins invitation to visit her in Paris. He participated in Steins famous salon, meeting the many luminaries in Steins circle. As the narrator is drawn into Muhammads story, he finds himself also drawn to a beautiful African-American woman who becomes as interested in the story of Steins visit to Morocco as she is in the young Moroccan who is researching it. Together they continue their quest into the past to rediscover Stein, in a novel that bursts with different varieties of passion at the hands of a master storyteller and poet.