In This Article
No city in Africa has magnetised more extraordinary creative minds than Tangier. In the 20th century alone it attracted Paul Bowles, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Henri Matisse, Eugène Delacroix, Jean Genet, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and the Rolling Stones. They didn't come for the weather. They came because Tangier was unlike anywhere else — a genuinely international zone where the normal rules didn't apply.
I spent three days doing nothing but tracing their footsteps. Here is what I found, and exactly how to follow the trail yourself.
Why Artists Came to Tangier
Between 1923 and 1956, Tangier was the International Zone — governed by a committee of eight nations, subject to no single country's law, operating under a peculiar freedom that was simultaneously political accident and creative paradise. Taxes were low or nonexistent. Censorship was minimal. Sexual freedom existed that was illegal almost everywhere else. The cost of living was almost nothing.
For writers and painters fleeing post-war Europe's conservatism and expense, Tangier was liberation. The light was extraordinary — sharp and Mediterranean but filtered through a certain haze from the Atlantic. The medina was labyrinthine, mysterious, and cheap. The kif (cannabis) flowed freely. The cafés were full of unusual people.
"Tangier is the only place I've been where I don't feel like a foreigner." — Paul Bowles
The Writers
Paul Bowles
The American composer and novelist arrived in 1947 and never left. He wrote The Sheltering Sky (1949) in a rented apartment in the medina. His flat on Rue Italie is now a museum that can be visited by appointment. He translated stories by Moroccan oral storytellers — most notably Mohammed Mrabet — into English, and is considered the person most responsible for the world's awareness of Moroccan literature.
William S. Burroughs
Burroughs came to Tangier fleeing a manslaughter charge in New Orleans and the collapse of his marriage. He lived in a single room at Hotel El Muniria (still operating) and wrote the scattered, visionary pages that Kerouac and Ginsberg eventually assembled into Naked Lunch (1959). The hotel room is Room 9. You can stay in it.
Mohamed Choukri
Morocco's own literary voice from Tangier. Choukri grew up in extreme poverty in the medina and taught himself to read and write as an adult. His memoir For Bread Alone (translated by Paul Bowles) is the most powerful document of Moroccan street life in the 20th century. His grave is in the Martyrs Cemetery on the hill above the medina.
The Painters
Henri Matisse
Matisse made two extended visits to Tangier, producing over 50 paintings and drawings. The light transformed his palette — the brilliant whites, the saturated blues, the sharp shadows — in ways that persisted throughout his career. He painted from the Hôtel Villa de France (still open), the mosque gardens, and the old medina. Reproductions of his Tangier works are displayed in the American Legation Museum.
Eugène Delacroix
The Romantic painter came with a diplomatic mission and was overwhelmed. "The Greeks and Romans are here at my door," he wrote in his journal. His Tangier sketches and subsequent paintings — particularly Fantasia (Exercise of Arab Horsemen) — established the Orientalist visual vocabulary that influenced European painting for a century.
The Walking Route
This 2–3 hour walk covers the key literary and artistic sites. Start at the Grand Socco (Place du 9 Avril) and work inward. Best done in the morning before the medina gets busy.
Key Sites Open to Visitors
- American Legation Museum — Mon–Fri 10am–5pm, Sat 10am–3pm. Free entry.
- Kasbah Museum — Wed–Mon 10am–6pm. 20 MAD entry.
- Hotel El Muniria — Walk-in welcome for drinks and to ask about the rooms. Budget hotel, rooms from ~200 MAD/night.
- Cinéma Rif — Grand Socco. A beautiful restored 1938 cinema now showing art house films. The café has excellent coffee and is a gathering point for Tangier's creative community.
Tangier's Creative Scene Today
The International Zone is long gone, but Tangier's creative DNA persists. The city has experienced a genuine cultural renaissance since 2000, driven partly by massive infrastructure investment (the new port, the TGV connection to Casablanca) and partly by a younger generation of Moroccan artists and writers who see Tangier's peculiar history as a resource.
The Cinéma Rif programs serious world cinema. The Villa des Arts hosts contemporary Moroccan artists. The Librairie des Colonnes — the legendary bookshop where Bowles, Genet and Choukri browsed — still operates on Boulevard Pasteur and hosts regular literary events.
If you come on the first weekend of June, the Tanjazz Festival fills the gardens and terraces with world-class jazz. It is one of Morocco's finest events and one of the most atmospheric music festivals in Africa.
What the Writers Actually Did All Day
A common misconception about the Tangier literary scene is that it was primarily about excess — kif, boys, drink, and debauchery. The reality is more interesting. Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangier for 52 years until his death in 1999, worked with extraordinary discipline. He woke early, wrote for hours, then spent afternoons translating Moroccan oral literature — recording storytellers, musicians and poets and transforming their work into English-language books that would otherwise have been lost.
Burroughs wrote most of "Naked Lunch" in Tangier — a chaotic process of cut-up manuscript pages that Ginsberg and Kerouac helped him sort and edit when they visited in 1957. The city provided a specific kind of creative permission: the sense that normal rules didn't apply, that any direction was possible, that the constraints of American and European conservative society couldn't reach here. This feeling still exists in Tangier, to a degree. The medina at 11pm has an energy that is hard to find in other Moroccan cities — late cafés, music from apartments, the sense of a city that stays awake for its own reasons.
After the Tour: Tangier's Living Cultural Scene
The literary Tangier of Bowles and Burroughs ended with their deaths (Burroughs in 1997, Bowles in 1999). But the creative tradition has not. The Cinémathèque de Tanger (opened 2006) hosts film screenings, discussions and festivals throughout the year. The Galerie Conil and Galerie Delacroix represent contemporary Moroccan and international artists. The Tanjazz Festival (September/October) brings international jazz musicians to the city — one of North Africa's best music festivals.
The international character that made Tangier magnetic in the 20th century persists in a new form. The city's position at the entrance to the Mediterranean — visible from Spain on a clear day, connected to Tarifa in 35 minutes by ferry — continues to make it a crossing point for people, ideas, and energy that has no equivalent elsewhere in Morocco.
Practical Guide: Doing the Literary Walk
- Start point: Librairie des Colonnes, 54 Boulevard Pasteur — founded 1949, still open, still sells Bowles, Burroughs and Moroccan literature in French and English
- From there: Walk north on Boulevard Pasteur to the Grand Socco (Place du 9 Avril) — the junction between old and new city
- Into the medina: Up through the Petit Socco to the American Legation (Rue d'Amérique — follow signs)
- Kasbah: Continue uphill to the kasbah — Paul Bowles' final apartment was near the top gate (not open to visitors, but you can see the building)
- Café Hafa: Walk back down along the clifftop road to Café Hafa (open since 1921, served Bowles for decades). Order tea. Stay as long as you like.
- Allow: 3–4 hours at a literary pace; 2 hours if walking efficiently
- Best time: Morning (9–12) when the medina is coolest and the light on the Strait is sharpest