THE MARAUDERS OF MARRAKESH

We have always needed stories. This is how we were created. We have told stories about water, about fire, about stars and, this way, the world started to make sense. We need stories and now, more than ever, stories need us. now, when any selfie stick can tell a story and any stammerer with a keyboard is a storyteller. now, when the stories are slowly vanishing, while captive struggling behind the glass. But there are still a few places in the world where we can find them free and Barna’s book tells us the story of one of them. in Marrakesh, the stories still live in the markets, in the air, and in the people who gather around the storytellers. The locals call them hlaykia and they listen to them. i listened to them as well, without understanding the words. i listened and i grasped the sound, the flavour, the perfume. The locals say that when a hlaykia dies, a library burns. The people in Barna’s photos. The people who know what a story means and who are now introduced to us by Barna.

Dani Macarie