“Our home was filled with music. Even when times were hard, our rooms were filled with the warm sounds of Moroccan music. But my grandmother took me to a classical music concert and when we came out it was clear that I would play the mandolin—not the Moroccan oud, but the Russian mandolin; not Farid al-Atrash but Tchaikovsky. I love Tchaikovsky. I love the mandolin. But within me there is always a yearning for what was lost, a yearning for Arabism. When I visit Arab friends, my eyes tear up. When I watch Arab movies, I am all emotion. I know that there, in Morocco, my father was at ease. In
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