Morocco Literature
According to thefreegeography, the Arabic-language literature of Morocco, which escaped from Ottoman domination and therefore remained on the fringes of the ideological and literary currents of the Arab world, is of very recent origin. In the past centuries, in fact, literary production was initially expressed in the Arabic-Hispanic dialect and in the Melkhūn language., based on the vernacular Moroccan, influenced by the Bedouin speech. In the field of poetry already in the century. XIX the Moroccan poets tried to get rid of traditional schemes with little success. At the beginning of the century. XX Egyptian poetry exerted a great influence on the generation of Moroccan poets, whose verses were characterized by an exasperated nationalism. Among the most important authors, the self-taught figure Muṣṭafā al-Miʽdāwī (1937-1961) stands out, in whose poetry there is a resentful tone of recovery, having participated in the Moroccan resistance (1954-55). Other significant contemporary poets are Muḥammad as-Sabbāg, author of many works translated into Spanish, and Muḥammad ʽAzīz Laḥbābī, in whose poetry the attempt to replace traditional canons with new metric and stylistic solutions emerges. Even in the evolution of prose and fiction the century. XX is marked by a nationalistic spirit that reflects the historical events of Morocco. Among the most politically committed writers are ʽAllal al-Fāsī, politician and theorist of Moroccan nationalism, whose historical originality he postulates from Carthage onwards; Muḥammad al Ḥasan al-Wazzānī, ʽAbd al-Hāliq at-Ṭurrīs, al-Makkī an-Nāṣirī and ʽAbd al-Karīm Gallāb (b.1919).
Alongside the production in Arabic, it is worth mentioning the existence of works written in the Berber language (with a prevalently popular and folkloric content) and above all of a remarkable literature in French. Protestant writers belong to the latter area, striving to conquer an “authenticity” poised between the revolt against colonial and bourgeois models, disenchantment with atavistic traditions and faith in the next regeneration. The founder of the courageous magazine deserves a special place Souffles (1966-75), the poet ʽAbdellatif Laâbi (b.1942), long imprisoned for his political ideas. Notable writers are Driss Chraibi (1928-2007) (Naissance à l’aube) and Mohammed Khaīr-Eddine (1941-1995) (Agadir), all authors who speak in French. Muḥammad Shukrī (Choukri) (1935-2003), whose autobiographical novel al-Khubz al-ḥāfī (The naked bread) has been translated into many languages. Despite the initial difficulty of “accepting” the choice of using French in literature after the independence achieved in 1956, we can speak of a true literary flowering in this language, in a style that expresses the identity of the Maghrebi people. The need to theorize the language has the strongest exponent in Abdelkebir Khatibi (La mémoire tatouée) who would like to overcome the antagonism between Arabic and French in a dimension that offers the possibility of exchange between the two cultures. After the fundamental experience gained with the Souffles magazinewe are witnessing two fundamental trends. An attempt to dismantle the literary traditions, national and French, judged incapable of expressing the writer’s imagination and, at the same time, the effort to invent a writing that translates the bicultural thought of the author. The traditional layout of the narrative is abandoned due to a fragmentation of the discourse that approaches philosophical and ideological tones, and in which even the temporal development is dissolved and mixed with elements of dreams, remembrance and reflection.
From the point of view of content, the authors of the Eighties draw from the national heritage stories, legends and epics to then immerse themselves in everyday reality and criticism of society. Rarer, but still practiced, is the use of meditation and intimism. Immobile Parcours, 1980; Aïlen ou la nuit du récit, 1983; Mille ans un jour, 1986; Le retour d’Abel El Haki, 1991) are dominated by the theme of the disappearance of the Moroccan Jewish community, whose conscience the writer interprets. All interwoven with a strong political commitment, his books are a reflection on the destiny of man. The novels by Abdelhak Serhane (b. 1950), Messauda (1983), Les enfants des rues étroites (1986), Le soleil des obscurs (1992) or his short stories Les Prolétaires de la haine are also dedicated to a “submissive” community. (1995) who speak of the fate of women and children in a community where men exercise tyrannical patriarchal power. The novels by Mahi Binebine (b.1959), Le sommeil de l’esclave (1992) and Les Funérailles du lait (1994) are noteworthy. Moroccan poetry is conceived, in the wake of Souffles’ teaching, as an act of denunciation of a wounded people, in balance between moralizing denunciation and ideology. Writing therefore often becomes a cry of anger, incitement to revolt and a struggle to achieve freedom. Mossafa Nissaboury (b.1943) in La mille et deuxième nuit turns against the city of the hopeless, Mohammed Loakira in L’horizon est d’argiledenounces the horrors of the African peoples. But if literature has left the field of specialists and has risen to the highest levels in the world, this is mainly due to Tahar Ben Jelloun, who was awarded the prestigious Goncourt prize in 1987 for La nuit sacrée. His other novels, translated into many languages, include Moha le fou, Moha le sage (1978), L’enfant de sable (1985) and Le racisme expliqué à ma fille (1998). Among the most interesting and best-known voices it remains to mention Fatima Mernissi (1940-2015), writer and scholar of the Islamic and female world in particular, who in her novels and essays (for example L’Amour dans les pays musulman, 2007) carries on the thesis according to which female freedom can be compatible with the indications dictated by the Koran.
