The Spider's House by Paul Bowles (1955) — Set in Fez during the final years of the French Protectorate, this novel captures the moment Morocco was being torn between tradition and independence. Bowles lived in Morocco for decades and understood the country's contradictions better than almost any outsider. Read it before or after visiting any of the old imperial cities.
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi (1994) — Mernissi, born in Fez in 1940, recounts growing up in a household governed by the harem system and her own growing awareness of the walls — literal and figurative — around women's lives. She later became a professor in Rabat and one of the most important feminist thinkers of the Arab world. The most direct way into understanding Moroccan women's experience of the 20th century.
The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami (2014) — A novel imagining the inner life of Mustafa al-Zammouri, a Moroccan-born slave who became the first African explorer of North America as part of Narváez's disastrous 1527 expedition. Lalami was born in Rabat and her writing is rooted in the complexity of Moroccan identity across centuries.
Lords of the Atlas by Gavin Maxwell (1966) — The rise and fall of the Glaoui family, the Berber lords who controlled southern Morocco under French patronage and then saw everything collapse at independence. Reads like a thriller; explains the underlying structure of power and betrayal that shaped 20th-century Morocco.