Short Story Collection! It’s been awhile since I’ve read one of these. I love them, I really should read them more often. These are feminist stories that hit on all the topics that seem to really tick people off - this makes it considerably more enjoyable to me. The translators note tells us more about the author, which I found interesting as well.

Blood Feast is a collection of short stories by Moroccan radical feminist author Malika Moustadraf, translated from the original Arabic by Alice Guthrie, who includes detailed biographical and bibliographic information in the afterward. The narrators are Amin El Gamal and Lameece Issaq, who perform the text with passion, reverence, and empathy. The work includes a series of short but powerful vignettes of life on the streets and in the homes of Casablanca and the author holds no punches nor shies away from airing the most sordid laundry, especially when it comes to revealing the most vile, violent, and repugnant forms of misogyny, which she seems to suggest is the true nature of all Moroccan men. Fathers, sons, husbands, lovers, doctors - none are spared the wrath of her pen. The author’s short life was plagued by illness, poverty, and sexism; these themes permeate her writing. Like the author, her characters are marginalized, degraded, used, abused, overlooked, isolated, denigrated, shamed, feared, and rejected. Moustadraf plays with the tropes of virgin vs. whore and reveals dichotomies both hidden and plainly visible in traditional and contemporary Arab life, such as desire vs. shame, and fear vs. freedom. The rights of men to objectify, break, and figuratively, if not literally, dismember women into disparate and disgusting parts are juxtaposed against the plight of women and transsexuals, who are seen as mired in self-loathing while seeking acceptance. Listening to these tales is uncomfortable and arduous; the reader experiences a visceral sensation of subjugation as Moustadraf’s characters suffer never-ending penance and punishment. Blood Feast is an important body of work and this audiobook format is highly recommended.

The first questions Netgalley poses in their review guide are these: "What makes this book different from all others? And why should anyone care?" And, especially for this book, there are some great answers.

*Blood Feast*, a collection of works from Moroccan feminist author Malika Moustadraf, originally drew me in just by those facts alone. But reading the stories - which deal with topics such as female strength in the face of societal misogyny, handling sexual assault, transphobia, chronic illness, and sexual freedom - you really realize that Moustadraf was something special.

*Blood Feast* is the full collection of Moustadraf's works, and its short length shows just how much more we could have had from such a trailblazing writer. Including in this length is the last 1/3 or so dedicated to the translator's note, which exceeds all expectations. Alice Guthrie gives precious insight into Malika's life, her tragically young death due to failings of the healthcare system, and tells us the arduous process of locating the limited published copies of her small oeuvre and collecting them together to be translated into English for the first time.

And here it is, shown in full for the first time in English, and even today we can see how penetrating and insightful her work is. Every story creates an intersection of struggles between race, class, gender, and so much more, a tapestry of rarely told stories finally getting a powerful authorial voice.

And as a postscript: perhaps what I learned most from *Blood Feast* is how important it is to seek out works by these women and rarer voices and LISTEN to them! Moustadraf's works were kept alive only by small groups of people finding her works and spreading them, keeping them, and learning from them. Without those people finding these works and spreading the word, so many of these can pass to obscurity. Read, listen, pay attention to what these people have to say!!! There is so much value in taking in the perspectives of EVERY person. The world is not just from some white guy's perspective.

Blood Feast is a fantastic feminist short story collection highlighting the experiences of women and marginalized groups in modern-day Morocco. Written before the author’s tragic death in 2006, Malika Moustadraf explores gender, sexuality, domestic abuse, chronic illness and disability, and the pitfalls of patriarchal societies in a collection of 14 compelling stories. The stories are excellently written - horrifically blunt and raw with an edge of black humor that keeps you just on the edge of your seat the entire time.

The writing here is superb. The stories are short, but tell such deep, nuanced stories that touch your heart - either in sorrow or rage. “Just Different,” is one that truly stuck out to me. It’s about an intersex person (or trans, it’s left up to interpretation), who faces ridicule and ostracism from their family and community, speaking about how they have to carry a knife in case they get jumped again. It’s harrowing in that the narrator doesn’t fully understand their own body, nor does anyone try to assist. Another I liked was “Woman, A Djellaba, and a Packet of Milk.” The repetition of these items (and a home) kind of broke my heart; You can just see this woman’s desperation to make a better life for her child while being dejected at every turn.

The author’s note at the end brought everything together for me. Not only did it give me more of Moustadraf’s backstory, it helped to explain and provide context for the stories that I didn’t completely understand. There are a lot of Moroccan idioms that don’t fully translate well into English, so that lack of exposure and understanding hindered my full enjoyment of some of the stories. But it’s clear that Guthrie, the translator, has a deep appreciation for Moustadraf, her work, and her re-burgeoning legacy. This is an extremely short, but enjoyable, read (read it in less than a day on a work car-trip), which was fantastic. The stories are engaging and leave you wanting more. It’s truly a shame that Moustadraf passed before continuing on.

The most difficult part of these stories is the violence. Every story features some facet of violence against women - not as shock value or anything, but a true representation of what women go through. Major content warnings for domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, misogyny, eating disorders, and mental illness.

I can easily see myself purchasing a physical copy of this book to read through again. I have a feeling that I’ll be thinking about these stories for many years to come. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for a review.

Blood fest is a fascinating collection of short stories by a Moroccan writer Malika Moustadraf who is widely considered a femenist icon. Her stories are row and unapologetic. The author was most fascinated with the gender, sexuality, and desire, especially of those living on the margins of the Moroccan society: women, trangener and intersex people, sex workers, and people with disabilitites. Aproximately 30% of the audiobook is dedicated to Translator's Note, in which amazing Alice Guthrie is talking about the incredibly short and troubled, but also brilliant life of this forgotten maverick writer who has been taken away from us way too soon. I found these 30% to be as fascinating as the actual stories. While the stories are brilliant in their own right, learning about this revolutionary author's tragic life definitely enhanced my appreciation of her work. In addition to that Guthier is also talking at length about the specificity and the challenges of translating Moustadraf's work. One of Moustadraf's literary strengths is the creative use of Arabic language, in particular the Casablanca slang, the idioms, and the many references to Quran and Moroccan folklore which are common in a day to day life of her characters but make the translation of her work very complex. While I already knew that it was inevitable that a good amount of the author's brilliance got lost in translation (no matter how amazing the translator was) it was a good reminder to always keep that in mind.  

Moutadraf died very young, at the age of thirty seven, and left only one novel and a short stories collection (with the three last stories published after her death). She suffered from a debilitating kidney disease and from a lot of hate from people who were not ready for her groundbreaking work. She eventually lost the battle with her illness after many years of trying and failing to secure a life saving treatment, and because she used a good amount of funds to self publish her first novel, which caused her to put her treatment on pause. Her work was largely forgotten, until it resurfaced recently, and was published again in Arabic. Blood Feast is the first English translation of Moustadraf's work. Here is a moving excerpt from Guthier's Translator's Note: "Given all that she lived through, it's not surprising that Malika Moustadraf doubted the power (or even the point) of writting. Sounding jaded in her 2004 interview with Ouafik, she said, "There was a time when I actually thought, in my delusion, that writing was capable of changing something." Her outspoken femenist literary activism clearly did not seem to have the effect she had once dreamt of. And, as she was already suspecting by then that it would, her writing contributed to her death, via the furious backlash it provoked in some quaters, and how that affected her acess to life-saving treatment. There's no way to make that reality ever feel just, and no way to make up for the loss of her. But what about the mysterious afterlife of a dead writer's work? Her words are back in print in Arabic now, being read by new readers. Her work is also arriving in another language, and perhaps traveling on from here to yet more languages, to be read in places far from Casablanca."

My personal favorites from the stories collection were Just Different, which according to Guthier, was the first story (known to her) in Arabic Literature that featured a intergender or trans person, and Woman: A Djellaba and a Packet of Milk which I found incredibly disturbing but at the same time very moving, and which left me in awe of Moustadraf's ability to use the repetitive language to portray the protagonist's state of mind.

I highly recommend Blood Feast on audio. It is performed by Amin El Gamal, and Lameece Issaq, both of whom are brilliant and I strongly believe that their narration contributed immensely to the experience

What a weird but compelling short story collection that centers itself around blood. I've very recently become infatuated with translated works of fiction, and this didn't disappoint. It's unlike anything else I've read and it won't be leaving my mind anytime soon.

Blood Feast is a collection of feminist short fiction exploring the experiences of women and queer people in Morocco, living in a deeply traditional, religious, and patriarchal society.

Moustadraf was ahead of her time in chronicling the experiences of sex workers, trans people, and the inner lives of women in a misogynistic society rife with abuse, harassment, and double standards. The stories are blunt and provocative, resisting against patriarchy with dry humour despite the difficult subject matter.

There is also an exploration of chronic illness and the failing healthcare system, an experience all too familiar for the author, whose early passing due to kidney disease could have been prevented with proper treatment.

I don't know that saying I enjoyed this collection would be entirely accurate. These stories are bleak, uncomfortable, upsetting, and frustrating as hell. But that is their purpose. Moustadraf was trying to shine a glaring light on the failures of the misogynistic culture she inhabited, and domestic abuse, rape, harassment, fatphobia, and rampant sexism are all pieces of that failure.

I do wish each of these stories had been longer or that Moustadraf had been given enough time to rework her ideas into the second novel she had planned to write. It saddens me that Malika Moustadraf passed so young before she was able to create her magnum opus.

I am grateful to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the ALC provided for review.


Trigger/Content Warnings: misogyny, sexual assault, harassment, fatphobia, transphobia, domestic abuse, chronic/terminal illness, violence, child abuse, suicide, infidelity, eating disorders, mental illness

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy of the audiobook!

This collection is compiled of the works of a Moroccan feminist written throughout the author's life. Many of the stories focus on feminism and the lives of women and were spoken about in a way that I enjoyed. The stories were short and cut to the bone without much use of flowery prose. I really enjoyed seeing this insight into Muslim feminism and how women viewed the world at this point in time. What surprised me most was the story of a MTF trans woman and how that was viewed by the town they lived in. This felt really progressive, especially for a writer who died in 2006.

I didn't like the abrupt way the stories would end before they segued into the next one. I think this is in part because the audiobook doesn't do much to separate the stories. They do announce the name of the story before reading it, however it wasn't noticeable that they were switching stories unless the narrators would change, signaling a male or female protagonist. I wish the stories had been longer as well as I feel you didn't quite get the whole picture that the author was going for.

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who really likes feminist works as I do this it is a valuable perspective. I wouldn't recommend the audiobook for the reasons stated above, but I do think this work deserves the chance to be read.

Powerful and emotional essays. I can't believe I have never heard of Malika Moustadraf. Her feminist art and inclusion of sex work is revolutionary.

I loved this book of short stories that gave a very raw and real look into life for these individuals in Morocco. The culture in Morocco is sometimes a very hard culture for these characters to live in and its great to see things being written about that might not be normally talked about and it was done in such a beautiful way. The way that women are seen in this culture is so jarring and absolutely heartbreaking.

I found this book to be very interesting and well-written, if not entirely my kind of book. It provides an eye-opening look into the Moroccan Muslim culture, especially some of its less desirable elements.

This is not a happy book. It won't make you smile and leave you feeling lighthearted after reading it, but it will leave you feeling contemplative and eager to make sense of and learn more about what you just read.

It examines the role of women and LGBT people within the Muslim community, and it's not always a pretty role. However, it also shows women taking back their power and finding ways to reclaim their sexuality in a world that doesn't want them to do either of those things.

It's a good read.

My only complaint - and this is specific to the audiobook version - is that it would often stop mid-sentence and jump to an entirely new sentences (sometimes an entirely new story). At first, I thought the audio recording glitched, but once it happened a few more times, I came to believe that this is just how the story was written.

The author was trailing off mid-thought. It likely would have been fine in print format, as it would have been obvious what was happening. However, it didn't translate well to audio because - as I mentioned - it seemed like a glitch.

Blood Feast is an excellent collection of short stories, each a snapshot of everyday life in the particular patriarchal culture of Morocco and how it effects its cast of characters. These vignettes add up to a telling collage. I do wish some of the stories hadn't ended so suddenly, but it is very true to real life in that way. The audiobook, in particular, is very good with the narrators using a variety of voices for the different characters.


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

4 stars:

I’m not mad at this book or its translation. It’s nice to see an author trying to break the mold and writing things that others -at that time- refused to write about. Malika writes the truth as she sees it. Her untimely death could have been prevented and that’s the saddest thing about this book. Translator, Alice Guthrie, really does justice by Malika and I think she would be proud to see her work translated in the English language so that the wider world can enjoy her writing. Well done.

The stories in this collection are sharp-witted and read with a resounding echo of the author's personal insights and experience of her country and community.

Moustadraf is direct in the themes that she explores and they all centre women in a harshly patriarchal society. With stories that look at sex workers, abandoned wives and mothers, resentful husbands and fathers, and an intersex/transgender character, Moustadraf clearly wants her readers to see how tradition, sexism, misogyny, and male world views impact the lives of her women and gender non-conforming characters.

But even as we read these stories, it is clear that these characters all have a certain strength and determination to find a way out.

4 stars

A fantastic collection of 14 short stories by a woman writer from Morocco. They are about contemporary life in Morocco & touch on gender, racism, religion, sexuality, chronic illness, & more. Great writing & character work, these stories have a lot to say.

[What I liked:]

•The writing is excellent. So much is revealed with nuance in a short space, the characters very real, the settings evocative. There is joy & fury & sorrow & triumph & life & death contained within.

•The story “Just Different” is very touching & well written, about an intersex person (possibly trans) who faces violence & abuse in their family & community. I also really enjoyed “A Woman in Love, a Woman Defeated”, about a woman who’s suffered very bad luck in love & marriage but finds her inner strength & comes into her own.

•Don’t skip the translator’s note at the end! It’s really good & tells how these stories almost fell out of circulation & about Moustadraf, the writer.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•This is not a criticism but mainly a content warning: there is a lot violence in these stories, especially violence against women. It’s not there for shock value nor glorified; in fact a lot of it is verbal or happens off screen. Just be aware going in. I personally had to pace myself.

CW: child abuse, domestic violence, substance abuse, misogyny, suicide, infidelity, eating disorders, mental illness, sexual assault, sexual harassment, chronic/terminal illness

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

This was a very quick listen, and I'm very glad I requested it! It has been a while since I have read essays so honest and real, and I was very impressed by the quality of the translation.