The Tangier Diaries

by John Hopkins

Tangier in the 1960s and '70s was a fabled place. This edge city, the 'Interzone', became muse and escapist's dream for artists, writers, millionaires and socialites, who wrote, painted, partied and experienced life with an intensity and freedom that they never could back home. Into this louche and cosmopolitan world came John Hopkins, a young writer who became a part of the bohemian Tangier crowd with its core of Beats that included William Burroughs, Paul and Jane Bowles and Brion Gysin, as well as Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Yves Saint Laurent, Barbara Hutton and Malcolm Forbes. Those intoxicating decades - Tangier's 'Golden Years' - are long gone. Grand old houses that once sparkled with life are shuttered and dark and most of the eccentrics who once lived and loved in the city have died. But here, in the pages of John Hopkins' cult classic, all the decadence and flamboyance of those days is brought to life once more.

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 21, 2015

Reviews

[Steve Charters]

The 'diaries' are so sparse they must surely be heavily and selectively edited. There's an element of name-dropping with various eminent people (Tennessee Williams, the Beatles, Nureyev et al) appearing in the text but none of them doing anything worthy of note. The travelogue writing and natural descriptions are of some interest, but there are many unanswered questions: where does his money come from? What was the nature of his relationship with Joe? What has been edited out?

I tried finding out more about Hopkins but his output was small, out of print and not held by the public library. I read the book as background before reading a Paul Bowles and the Alexandria Quartet and came away with the impression of a conservative entitled middle-class American dope-fiend with delusions of literary grandeur who thinks that by living a self-indulgent easy rider Hemmingway life-style he'll spontaneously transform into an artist.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting observations and short vignettes of a life lived in Morocco for 17 years. John socialises with the rich and famous, writers, artists and other creatives. But he also spends time with the local Moroccans, in the desert and in the villages and cities of this fascinating north African country....