Saturday 15 November 2014

10:00am

Duration: 1 Hour

Venue: Upper Reading Room, The Gibraltar Garrison Library

Ticket price: £10

Celebrated novelist Joanne Harris talks to editor of the Gibraltar Chronicle Dominique Searle about her portrayal of a Moroccan community in her novel, Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, and about the integration of Moroccan communities in places such as Gibraltar and France. Peaches for Monsieur le Curé is the third part of Harris’s food trilogy. The novel sees Harris return to the characters she first wrote about in Chocolat – made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp – and in The Lollipop Shoes. Vianne returns to the French village of Lansquenet after eight years to find things much changed. A community of Moroccans has arisen and opposite the church there is a minaret. The novel reflects on ideas of community identity and on the wearing of the niqab or Islamic veil.

There has always been a Moroccan community in Gibraltar, but many modern Moroccans arrived to replace Spanish workers following Franco’s decision to close the Spanish border in 1969. Many stayed on the Rock and have had to explore with the local mixed cultural community how they are also Gibraltarian yet a stone’s throw from their ancestral homeland.

Harris’s books have been published in more than 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. She speaks at two more festival events, one on storytelling and one on domestic chillers.

For bookings, visit: http://gibraltarliteraryfestival.com/literature-events/2014/november-15/moroccan-community-and-peaches-for-monsieur-le-cure