While Choukri's first volume of autobiography, "For Bread Alone" (1973), has a simplistic, earthiness to it, this volume, published nearly 20 years later (1992) is written by a famous, educated, published man. It is not near as good. Although published in his lifetime, it often feels like a a gathering of notes by his literary executor.
Goodreads lists Paul Bowles as the translator.. He is not, it is Ed Emery. Bowles did translate the earlier volume, and that may have added to the quality of the book in English (there are some comments that Bowles took a few too many artistic liberties in his translation, and point to the fact that he did not know the classic Arabic that Choukri wrote in).
Disjointed, even within chapters, where at times he suddenly drops one story and goes on to another. Also, while he spends some time on the memories of the Spanish Civil War by old-timers who had fought in it, he does not spend any space on the times he himself visited Spain.
I am going on to the recently published "In Tangiers", which collects his pieces on T. Williams, Bowles and Jean Genet.