1st British (Commonwealth sic) edition 1973 151pp Peter Owen. Small open tears to top and tail of spine of dustwrapper, rubbed at edges, some damage to the rear else VG in G+ dustwrapper.
 
From the library of Spydeee Gasmantell, with his signature on prelims. An autobiography by Mohamed Choukri. Translated and with an introduction by Paul Bowles.
 
“A true story of human desperation, shattering in its impact.”-Tennessee Williams The book is a graphic account of a struggle for survival. Choukri will do almost anything “for bread alone.” He drinks and smokes kif, uses and lives with prostitutes, fights with a razor, and finds a way to have sex with a tree. He tries to eat dead chickens and fish that he finds, and when someone drops a sandwich into seawater thick with sewage, dives in after it.
 
Paul Bowles was an author and composer, married to the author Jane Bowles. They lived in Tangiers from the late 40’s until his death.  They were close friends of Burroughs, and Ginsberg, Burroughs stayed with them for a while when he first went to Morocco. Bowles is best known, if he is known at all, for his novel The Sheltering Sky which was made into a film by Bertolucci in 1990.