Morocco, a country of culture and openness

Keeping the essential Tangier essence of ‘Tangier Cocktails’, Alberto Gomez Font signed in November 2024 the third edition of his story by Kasbah Editions; after the success of this classic book in the first two editions: 1994 and 2017, respectively.   

With the new updated version of Tangier cocktails, the writer, philologist and adopted Tangier native wanted not only to renew the content, but also to add more freshness and contemporaneity to his recipes and anecdotes that have adorned Alberto Font's narrative text. 

Born in Barcelona in 1955, Alberto Gómez Font is a philologist and a great professional of the Spanish language. After graduating in Philosophy and Letters from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (1979), he worked as a proofreader and corrector of journalistic texts in the Department of Urgent Spanish at the Agencia EFE (1980-2005) and then held the post of general coordinator of the Fundación del Español Urgente (Fundéu) until 2012.  

Between 2012 and 2014 he was the director of the Instituto Cervantes in Rabat; he also collaborated in the drafting of the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas and the Libro de Estilo de la Lengua Española (Royal Spanish Academy). His productions dedicated to the Spanish language include ‘Donde dice... Debiera decir’ (2006) and ‘Español con estilo’ (2014), among others.

Alberto Gómez Font has not only been creative in the field of language, but also in literature, where he offered readers who love the city of Tangiers ‘Tangier Cocktails’, a story of continuity and renewal that was first published in 1994, to be republished in 2017 and updated in 2024. 

Beyond being an inspirational space for your book ‘Tangier Cocktails’, what impact did Tangier have on Alberto Gómez Font? 

I started reading books related to Tangier when my friend Guillermo Lorenzo, translator from English to Spanish of the novel ‘Déjala que caiga’ by Paul Bowles, asked me to help him adapt the Arabic expressions that appeared in the text into Spanish.  

Reading that book introduced me to the Tangiers of the 50s of the 20th century, and I started to become fond of reading about that city, to the point that, little by little, it caught me, both the time of the International Statute and the years when I met it in person, in the 80s and 90s of the last century.

If you had to choose another Moroccan city for your cocktails, what would it be? Why?   

If the action was set in the past, the city of choice would probably be Tetouan, with some stories also in Rabat; the two capitals of the Spanish and French protectorates respectively, as they were home to very good hotels where great cocktail professionals officiated. 

The echo generated by Tangier as a haven for writers and artists and recently Rabat as World Book Capital 2026 means that Morocco has made great strides towards becoming an important destination for cultural tourism in Africa. How do you see the progress the Kingdom is making in this regard?  

I do not see this cultural tourism as new, as it is the one I have been practising for many years, and also the one that occupies the days and trips of many of my friends.  

It is true that in recent times there has been a growing interest in Morocco as a country in which culture is constantly present in many activities - cinema cycles, book presentations, painting exhibition openings, plays, film shoots... -. It is also striking, going back to Tangiers, the number of fiction books set in Tangiers, whether in Spanish, French or English.  

As a Spanish language professional, what is your vision of the future of Spanish language teaching, learning and use among Spanish speakers around the world? What do you think about Hispanism in Morocco today?

The use of Spanish is mostly ‘outside Spain’, since it is not for nothing that Spanish is an American rather than a European language, since more than 95% of those who speak it live on the other side of the Atlantic.  

There are also other countries, such as Morocco, where there are many Spanish speakers, and this means that there are great specialists - hispanists - in Moroccan universities, who work to disseminate knowledge of Spanish language and literature.  

Given your interest in Arabic language and culture, what wonders have fascinated you in the Arab world in terms of culture and art, and what can you tell us about Moroccan culture? 

I know very little about the Arab world - Jordan, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. And the country I know the most about is Morocco, and the part of the culture that fascinates me the most is the gastronomy. I love visiting the markets and then tasting the tasty dishes that you can enjoy in the popular restaurants and street food stalls.  

As for art, I love the architecture of the medinas and citadels, and the courtyards of the palaces (riads) and the ‘fúnduqs’.  

Taking advantage of the new flourishing era of Spanish-Moroccan relations, what recommendations would you give to those involved in the cultural sector in both countries to build bridges of cooperation in this field?  

That they get well informed about all aspects of culture with advisors, and then sit down to talk, either over a glass of tea or a glass of wine, and spend hours discussing proposals and analysing projects. In other words, they should be willing to work hand in hand so that each of the two countries is enriched by a good cultural exchange. 

As an expert in philology, what secret recipes would you give readers to communicate better and writers to express themselves better in four key words?  

Nowadays, the best advice is to keep up to date, to keep abreast of the latest in communication: ‘clear language’. And if it is done well, success is assured. 

The four key words: clarity, conciseness, immediacy and neatness.