Chocolate Creams and Dollars

In 1965 Mrabet, a Moroccan, met Bowles in Tangier; the American writer and composer began taping Mrabet's stories and translating them from Moghrebi into English. This loosely autobiographical and dreamlike work, written in the mid-'70s, centers on a young Moroccan named Driss who uses his position as houseboy to an affluent Englishman to amass a small fortune. Driss cheats his employer and the houseguests at every turn; a prudent money manager and born entrepreneur, he buys a fleet of fishing boats and gradually rises to village prominence despite the townfolks' suspicions that his wealth comes from prostitution. Drug-inspired sexual acts abound, but the narrative is deliberately bloodless and melancholic. At once beautifully atmospheric and disturbingly flat, this arresting, almost hallucinatory novel gains additional power through Taaffe's haunting prints and photographs. (Mar.)